Trait mindfulness is related to attention bias toward threat and attention bias variability in social anxiety disorder

Attention and attention control are central to definitions of mindfulness and are implicated in the etiology and maintenance of social anxiety disorder, yet no study has examined the relationship among them within a clinical sample, the purpose of the current research. This study tested the hypothesis that self-reported trait mindfulness would be negatively correlated with overall attention bias towards threat and attention bias variability using a facial dot probe task. Forty-one adults diagnosed with social anxiety disorder completed the Mindfulness Attentional Awareness Scale and a facial dot probe task at two sessions one week apart. Average attention bias towards threat was measured using a traditional aggregate mean index (MacLeod et al., Journal of Abnormal Psychology 95:15–20, 1986) and using a newly developed index calculated with trial level bias scores (Zvielli et al., Clinical Psychological Science 3:772–788, 2015). Trial level bias scores were also used to measure attention bias variability. There were no significant correlations between mindfulness and the traditional index of attention bias ( p ’s > .05). There were significant negative correlations between trait mindfulness and attention bias towards threat, r = -.367, p = .018, as well as attention bias variability, r = -.430, p = .005, when calculated with trial level bias scores, but only at the second assessment. This study provides the first evidence of a link between trait mindfulness and mean attention bias towards threat and attention bias variability in adults with social anxiety disorder.