Assessing executive functioning in individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) across the lifespan: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis

Social anxiety disorder is a pervasive clinical disorder characterised by intense fear and/or avoidance of one or more social situations, and has been linked to deficits in executive functioning performance. However, methodological differences and mixed results have made it difficult to draw definitive conclusions from individual studies. The current systematic review and meta-analysis collated the results from 49 studies to examine the link between social anxiety disorder and executive functioning across the lifespan. Findings revealed that individuals with social anxiety performed significantly worse than healthy controls or low social anxiety groups on measures of executive functioning (r = -.15), specifically cognitive flexibility (r = -.20), inhibitory control (r = -.18), and global executive functioning (r = -.17). No significant association was evident between working memory and social anxiety (r = -.06). In addition, the type of measure (self-report vs cognitive task) moderated the relationship between social anxiety and executive functioning. Although age did not moderate the overall relationship, the association between the individual domains of executive functioning and social anxiety differed between youth and adults, which may reflect the different developmental timelines between the domains across the lifespan. The findings offer valuable insight into our understanding of the development of executive functions for individuals with social anxiety and could assist with forming new strategies or interventions to improve daily functioning in this clinical population.