The purpose of this study is to determine whether power posing (i.e., holding poses associated with dominance and power), compared to submissive posing or rest, prior to exposure therapy for social anxiety disorder: 1) leads to a temporary increase in testosterone levels and/or 2) facilitates exposure therapy outcomes.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
73
Exposure therapy for social anxiety disorder
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas, United States
LSAS-performance Subscale
Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS)-Performance Subscale at pre- and 1-week post-treatment. The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) - Performance Subscale is a subscale of a common measure of social anxiety symptom severity. This subscale consists of only 13 (of the total 24) items related to performance situations. Participants rate both their fear (0 to 3) and avoidance (0 to 3) of these 13 situations, where higher scores indicate worse social anxiety severity. The minimum possible score on this subscale is 0 and the maximum possible score is 78.
Time frame: Scores at 1 week post-treatment
Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDs)
Peak (max) SUDS ratings (0 to 100 scale) during treatment exposure and 1 week post-treatment exposure. Peak Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) is the maximum amount of fear experienced rated on a 0 to 100 point scale, where 0 indicates no anxiety and 100 indicates the maximum level of anxiety.
Time frame: Scores at 1 week post-treatment
Salivary Testosterone Levels
Saliva sample taken before posture manipulation and 20 minutes after. Outcome is the change from pre- to post-manipulation in testosterone levels.
Time frame: Baseline and 20 minutes after posture manipulation
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