Instructional demand and pretesting in the assessment of social anxiety

A Solomon Four-Group design was used to investigate the effects of pretesting, instructional demand, and their possible interaction on the overt behavior and self-report of socially anxious males. One-half of the subjects were assessed in a low-demand pretest social interaction task. All subjects participated in a posttest social interaction 1 week later where high- and low-demand instructions were crossed with the pretest-no pretest factor. Posttest data indicated that there were no significant instructional demand, testing, or interaction effects. This study does not support the hypothesis of pretest sensitization as a way to reconcile the conflicting results of previous research. The present data are consistent with the claims that social anxiety is not easily influenced by instructional demand effects.