SELF-TALK.REGULATION.AND SOCIAL ANXIETY 311 cewodn-blindatesyfor otes during this time nate over negative exp swith highe levels of re tin Gros zed as stat ents in which particinants alizations about their experience during the task (e.only st set up to n used in Study 2.The key differ- 79M=1.13,sD=134)and rece hat (a)in this study.participants were d wing prior res (C (e.g .20)-wcoilaped aero ot me rom reco ale th Phase 5:Speech task Next.the experimenter ret rned and lec M=0.63.SD Alder d in their 0).which w participants' and rated ther n or .to which they brooded over their sp coring the nervousnes As exp thes wo postevent processing measures wer foeach coder.Judge' debriefed at the end o ace index (a=86;M=3.39.SD 0.83 affeet and s oiced suspicio o allow m Results ext.they into the floo not f anxicty,87=0.70,p s no d on how the n anipulation influenced emo that fal ted to any of the c dent variabl vant to public on et al 2004).Re. ems arison n global affect and shame.we fir r room and asked them to sit quietly until they sistent with scores on the Sh ne scale.We then examined the &Zaldivar,2008).At the end of this 5-min period,postevent s non-first-pe on)and trait social anxiety as the covariate Thi gondionby,timcintcraction ehts that flowed th h their mind as theywaited for the person ved signifi experimenter to retur.Using a(not at all)to 4(completely) They were then taken to a small room, which contained a desk and chair, and given 5 min to prepare. They were not permitted to take notes during this time. Phase 4: Experimental manipulation. After the 5-min prep￾aration period, participants were told: Besides preparing the content of a speech, people also need to prepare themselves psychologically before giving a speech, so we are inter￾ested in learning about the different ways people go about preparing themselves to give a speech, and what effect each type of self￾preparation has on performance. They were then randomly assigned to the first-person (n
45) or the non-first-person (n
44) condition using instructions that were virtually identical to those used in Study 2. The key differ￾ences were that (a) in this study, participants were directed to analyze their emotions before giving a speech (rather than before engaging in a social interaction task) and (b) “he or she” was given as an example of the type of non-first-person pronoun participants in the non-first-person condition could use in addition to “you.’ Phase 5: Speech task. Next, the experimenter returned and led the participant to another room where they delivered their 5-min speech to two confederates posing as evaluators. A video camera positioned in their field of vision recorded their performance. Phase 6: Speech performance. Two condition-blind coders watched videotapes of participants’ speeches and rated them on three dimensions: confidence, nervousness, and overall perfor￾mance (1
below average, 5
above average). After reverse scoring the nervousness scores, coders’ ratings were found to be consistent across these dimensions (Rater 1: ICC
.75; Rater 2: ICC
.78). Therefore, we collapsed across all three dimensions to create a single speech performance index for each coder. Judge’s ratings on these indexes were collapsed to form a single speech performance index (
.86; M
3.39, SD
0.83). Phase 7: Postspeech global affect and shame. After partici￾pants delivered their speeches, they again rated how they felt “right now” to allow measurement of global affect (1
very negative, 7
very positive; M
4.72, SD
1.16). Next, they completed 10 items that compose the Shame and Pride subscales (e.g., “I want to sink into the floor and disappear,” “I feel proud”; 1
not feeling this way at all, 5
feeling this way very strongly) of the State Shame and Guilt Scale (Marschall, Sanftner, & Tangney, 1994). We focused on how the manipulation influenced emotions that fall on the shame–pride dimension because they are particularly rele￾vant to public speech challenges (Dickerson et al., 2004). Re￾sponses to these items were averaged after reverse scoring the pride ratings, so that higher scores reflected greater shame (
.90; M
20.25, SD
7.16). Phase 8: Postevent processing. Next, the experimenters in￾formed participants that they had to set up the next phase of the study in another room and asked them to sit quietly until they returned in 5 min. This provided participants with an opportunity to ruminate over their speech performance (for a similar approach to assessing rumination, see Ayduk & Kross, 2008; Gerin, David￾son, Christenfeld, Goyal, & Schwartz, 2006; Zoccola, Dickerson, & Zaldivar, 2008). At the end of this 5-min period, postevent processing was assessed in two ways. First, we asked participants to describe in writing the stream of thoughts that flowed through their mind as they waited for the experimenter to return. Usinga0(not at all) to 4 (completely) scale, two condition-blind raters coded these essays for recounting and reconstruing. Prior research has linked the tendency to rumi￾nate over negative experiences with higher levels of recounting and lower levels of reconstruing (Ayduk & Kross, 2010b; Gross￾mann & Kross, 2010; Kross, Ayduk, & Mischel, 2005). Recount￾ing was operationalized as statements in which participants re￾hearsed the specific chain of events and emotions that they experienced during the speech task (e.g., “I was feeling nervous and fidgeted a lot while I was speaking”). Reconstruing was operationalized as statements in which participants described re￾alizations about their experience during the task (e.g., “I was only given 5 min to prepare my speech and was thus almost set up to not do well”). Interrater reliability was high for both recounting (ICC
.79; M
1.13, SD
1.34) and reconstruing (ICC
.82; M
0.49, SD
0.81). Following prior research (e.g., Ayduk & Kross, 2010b; Kross & Ayduk, 2008; Kross, Duckworth, Ayduk, Tsukayama, & Mischel, 2011), we collapsed across both measures by subtracting reconstruing scores from recounting scores to create a single thought content index. Higher scores reflected a greater tendency to recount versus reconstrue (M
0.63, SD
1.21). Second, after participants wrote their essay, they completed the five-item Rumination Questionnaire (RQ; Mellings & Alden, 2000), which we modified to apply to a speech task. Specifically, participants rated (1
not at all, 7
a lot) five items that assessed the degree to which they brooded over their speech task perfor￾mance (e.g., “To what extent did you criticize yourself about not handling the speech task well?”;
.70; M
3.65, SD
1.11). As expected, these two postevent processing measures were closely related (
.71). Therefore, we created a single index of maladaptive postevent processing by collapsing the data after standardizing scores on each measure. Phase 9: Debriefing. Participants were debriefed at the end of the study for suspicion and then compensated. No participant voiced suspicion about the study. Results Preliminary analyses. The groups did not differ on baseline affect, t(85)
0.26, p
.798, trait social anxiety, t(87)
0.70, p
.485, or gender, 2 (1)
0.09, p
.764. As in Study 2, baseline affect and trait social anxiety were included as covariates. Gender was not related to any of the dependent variables, and controlling for it did not substantively alter any of the results (for zero-order correlations, see Table 2). Therefore, it is not discussed further. Degrees of freedom vary across analyses due to missing data. Affect: Global affect and shame. To facilitate comparisons between global affect and shame, we first reverse scored partici￾pants’ baseline and postmanipulation global affect scores so that higher numbers on these scales reflected more negative affect, consistent with scores on the Shame scale. We then examined the effect of condition on global affect by performing a repeated￾measures ANCOVA with time of global affect measurement as the within-participants variable (two: baseline vs. postspeech task), condition as the between-participants variable (two: first-person vs. non-first-person) and trait social anxiety as the covariate. This analysis revealed a significant condition by time interaction, F(1, 83)
8.39, p
.005, p 2
.092, indicating that participants in the first-person group displayed a significant increase in negative affect over time, F(1, 42)
9.80, p
.003, p 2
.189. As Figure This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. SELF-TALK, REGULATION, AND SOCIAL ANXIETY 311