Post-event processing in social anxiety: A scoping review

Graded exposure successfully reduces fear in specific phobias and anxiety disorders, yet social exposure in daily life often fails to mitigate social anxiety. Post-event processing, perseverative, negative, self-referential thinking that occurs following a social-evaluative event, may partly explain inhibited desensitization to social fears. Post-event processing has been studied extensively since its first description by Clark and Wells (1995) and previously reviewed (e.g., Brozovich & Heimberg, 2008; Wong, 2016). However, these reviews are now dated or limited in scope. In the present scoping review, we pay particular attention to contemporary research that addresses unanswered questions raised in past reviews (e.g., Brozovich & Heimberg, 2008), synthesizing existing knowledge. Specifically, we discuss post-event processing’s evolving role in cognitive models of social anxiety disorder, its core features, its eliciting situations (e.g., performance vs. social interactions), its relation to other cognitive and affective constructs (e.g., memory, performance appraisal, self-focused attention), and its assessment. Our findings indicate that post-event processing is more frequent after performance situations than social interactions, is related to negative memory biases, is bi-directionally related to worsening performance appraisals, and may be precipitated by self-focused attention. Future research directions include elucidating post-event processing’s course, clarifying post-event processing’s potential causal role in the development of social anxiety disorder, and identifying factors that underlie post-event processing’s deleterious nature. •Post-event processing is a primary maintenance factor of social anxiety disorder.•Post-event processing is more common following performances than conversations.•Laboratory work suggests that self-focused attention causes post-event processing.•Post-event processing is related to more negative memories of social event.•More research is needed to clarify the course and consequences of post-event processing.