Marios Theodorou - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Marios Theodorou

Frontiers in Psychology

A number of studies to date examine dimensions of social phobia and anxiety in adolescents. A var... more A number of studies to date examine dimensions of social phobia and anxiety in adolescents. A variety of tools has been developed, along with their abbreviated versions, that are used to assess Social Anxiety (SA) but little research has been devoted to the types of fears they each assess. Due to differences in the content of the multitude of instruments, different aspects of SA are addressed and this leads to confusion when the relationship between SA and other constructs is being investigated. The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the abbreviated Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory SPAI-23 in Greek-Cypriot community adolescents and describe dimensions of social fears at that age. Seven hundred twenty-one adolescent students from Cyprus, (Mean Age: 15.5, Range: 13–19, SD: 1.12, 64% female) participated in the study. Participants completed, among others, an abbreviated version of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI-23). Exploratory Fact...

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MULTIMODAL INTERACTION

European Journal of Psychology Open

The soft-skills gapthe misalignment between the soft skills needed at the workplace and the soft ... more The soft-skills gapthe misalignment between the soft skills needed at the workplace and the soft skills possessed by the workforceis considered to be widening, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents evidence from two focus-group interviews conducted in May 2021 and May 2022 in Greece. We wanted to understand the factors influencing the soft-skills gap and possible ways to narrow it. Participants were experts on soft skills, involved in various ways and roles in the teaching, training, and evaluation of soft skills. They expressed their concerns about the soft-skills gap and identified aspects that involved employees, employers, the work environment, and the broader social environment. The idea of a constantly changing environment led to the conclusion that adaptability, taking the initiative, and metacognitive skills are most important for university graduates. This conclusion came with a caveat: Learning should take place in real-life contexts, and universities should find ways to embed educational practices in social and work interactions, both inside and outside universities, working closely with local communities.

Recent research conceptualizes alcohol use as bidirectionally associated with the same spectrum o... more Recent research conceptualizes alcohol use as bidirectionally associated with the same spectrum of fearfulness, on the one hand, and fearlessness, on the other. This study, conducted in Cyprus, measures negative affect, including fearfulness and sadness, on indices of startle amplitude, potentiation and latency, as well as heart rate and skin conductance to Fear, Sadness, Relaxation and Joy conditions during a tone-cued imagery task (N=70, 55.7% Female, Mage = 29), in order to examine the relationship between physiological fear reactivity, subjective fear ratings, alcohol use, Big Five personality dimensions and anxiety symptoms. The NEO-FFI and Psychiatric Disorders Screening Questionnaire were administered to assess the five personality factors and anxiety symptoms, respectively. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test was used to measure alcohol use. Results indicate that of the indices of negative affect, only Fear startle potentiation consistently predicts alcohol use, in a negative direction (b = -.22, p = .037) so that, less startle potentiation predicts greater alcohol use. Discussion focuses on characteristics of negative affectivity in relation to alcohol use, and potential explanations of this association.

The increase of gambling availability and the inclusion of Gambling disorder as an addiction in D... more The increase of gambling availability and the inclusion of Gambling disorder as an addiction in DSM-5 highlight the importance of brief screening measures aiming to identify at-risk gamblers. The current study using a brief telephone survey assessed demographic characteristics and gambling behaviors in 2118 adults in the island of Cyprus. Questions were developed based on DSM-5 criteria for Gambling Disorder, and common assessment tools. A percentage of 6% was identified as at-risk gamblers. Male gender, low monthly income, high frequency of gambling behavior, large amounts of money spent and gambling to escape from everyday problems or for amusement, specifically for men, were found to be characteristics that can help in the early identification of at-risk gamblers. Gambling for financial gain and as a way to socialize, birth date (age range), and employment status were not significant predictors of gambling severity. This study shows that the above characteristics can be assessed ...

PLOS ONE, 2021

Social Anxiety Disorder is among the most widely studied psychiatric conditions. However, the rol... more Social Anxiety Disorder is among the most widely studied psychiatric conditions. However, the role of attentional and emotional processes in the maintenance of the condition is still not well-established. This study addressed the impact of individual differences in Social Anxiety, by examining the effects of perceptual load and stimulus valence when processing faces vs objects, here used as distractors, within a letter-search task. In addition to RT and accuracy on the letter search task, heart rate, and skin conductance during the task and participants’ self-report emotional evaluation were assessed to help interpret performance effects. Results suggest that distractor stimuli that are either threatening or faces impair performance of high SA participants. Results demonstrate a hypervigilance for threatening faces in SA but indicate that this happens primarily when cognitive resources are available, that is, under low perceptual load.

Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2021

The increase in gambling availability and the inclusion of gambling disorder as an addiction in D... more The increase in gambling availability and the inclusion of gambling disorder as an addiction in DSM-5 highlight the importance of brief screening measures aiming to identify at-risk gamblers. The current study, using a brief telephone survey, assessed demographic characteristics and gambling behaviors in 2,118 adults. Questions were developed based on DSM-5 criteria for Gambling Disorder and common assessment tools. A 7% prevalence of as at-risk gamblers was identified. Male gender, low monthly income, high frequency of gambling behavior, large amounts of money spent, and gambling to escape from everyday problems or for amusement, specifically for men, were found to be the characteristics that can help in the early identification of at-risk gamblers. Gambling for financial gain and as a way to socialize, age, and employment status were not significant predictors of gambling severity. This study shows that the above characteristics can be assessed easily through phone screening of la...

Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 2018

Social anxiety in adolescence can have severe consequences including underachievement and school ... more Social anxiety in adolescence can have severe consequences including underachievement and school drop-out, psychopathology, and substance use disorders. The development of social anxiety in adolescents is a complex and poorly understood process. Temperamental predispositions such as behavioural inhibition are significant risk factors but the specific path leading from behavioural inhibition to social anxiety remains unclear. One potential pathway is that temperament leads to social anxiety through learned self-regulation strategies and cognitive predispositions, a hypothesis that has not yet been investigated in adolescents. In an attempt to investigate further this idea, we ran parallel multiple mediation analysis to examine whether greater behavioural inhibition system sensitivity is linked to higher social anxiety via greater anxiety sensitivity and experiential avoidance levels in a random community sample of high-school adolescents (N=718). The results confirmed our hypotheses. Independently of gender and after controlling for anxiety psychopathology and depression levels, greater be-1 Department of Psychology, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Council Member of the Center for Applied Neurosciences. Telephone number: +357 22 892081 havioural inhibition system sensitivity was associated with more severe social anxiety in adolescents both directly and indirectly through greater experiential avoidance and more severe anxiety sensitivity. Given the fact that social anxiety is a serious cause of academic and social impairment in adolescence, the present findings suggest malleable risk factors that can be effectively addressed in targeted prevention and treatment interventions. Results are discussed in light of previous relevant findings and in relation to relevant theoretical and methodological issues and clinical implications.

Cognitive Therapy and Research, 2017

College alcohol drinking is a public health concern worldwide. A line of research indicates that ... more College alcohol drinking is a public health concern worldwide. A line of research indicates that higher social anxiety is associated with more severe college drinking. However, other studies reveal a protective role of social anxiety against alcohol drinking in college students. Attempting to reconcile contradictory findings, we examined the hypothesis that there are multiple antagonistic pathways that could explain the social anxiety-college drinking relationship. In addition, there may be individual difference variables that moderate these processes. Furthermore, it was expected that the processes could vary as a function of the alcohol drinking outcomes examined. Expectancy theory emphasizes the role of alcohol outcome expectancies in alcohol drinking. Thus, in the present study we tested whether global positive and negative alcohol outcome expectancies partially mediate the relationship between social anxiety, alcohol consumption, and alcohol-related problems in a sample of 245 university students. We also examined the moderating role of gender in these mediating processes. Results revealed parallel but oppositional processes. Higher social anxiety was associated with heavier alcohol drinking and more serious alcohol-related problems via stronger positive alcohol outcome expectancies. However, the mediating role of positive alcohol outcome expectancies varied as a function of gender. It appears that in female students the mediating effect of positive alcohol outcome expectancies was stronger than in male students. On the other hand, higher social anxiety had a protective role against alcohol consumption but not against alcohol-related problems via stronger negative alcohol outcome expectancies. Finally, there was an inverse direct relationship between social anxiety and alcohol consumption.

Psychiatry Research, 2017

This study evaluates an alternative factor structure of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (... more This study evaluates an alternative factor structure of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (Turner et al., 1989), a widely used measure of social anxiety. Existing models ignore variance due to the different social contexts where social fears are expressed. Method: Taking a different approach to scoring than previous studies, this investigation proposes a new model, which, in addition to 4-5 symptom dimensions, is able to capture the situations (strangers, authority figures, members of the opposite sex and people in general) that are of concern to the examinee. To test this model, all 96 items of the Social Phobia scale, rather than the average of the sub-items of its 23 questions were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. Results: The model shows good fit and is superior to models ignoring the "situation" factors, which show good predictive validity in respect to real life demographics. Conclusion: Utilization of all single questions of the SPAI can capture a wider range of social fears related to social anxiety than using the average of the items, which has implications for the understanding and clinical assessment of social anxiety.

Psychology, Community & Health, 2016

AimThis investigation examined the association between social anxiety and loneliness, and the rol... more AimThis investigation examined the association between social anxiety and loneliness, and the role of associated characteristics specifically self-esteem, social skills and anxiety sensitivity, among young adults in Cyprus, and potential gender differences in the prediction of perceived loneliness.MethodQuestionnaires on loneliness, social skills, anxiety sensitivity and self-esteem were administered to a college sample in Cyprus.ResultsMediated regression supported full mediation by social skills and self-esteem, but not by anxiety sensitivity in the association between social anxiety and loneliness. For men, loneliness was mostly predicted by anxiety sensitivity, but among women by poor social skills and lower self-esteem. For neither gender were these effects moderated by social anxiety level.ConclusionSocial anxiety and loneliness are related but distinct constructs. Interventions focusing on social skill acquisition and practice, and anxiety tolerance for men may improve confid...

Biological Psychology, 2014

Findings on alexithymic emotion difficulties have been inconsistent. We examined potential differ... more Findings on alexithymic emotion difficulties have been inconsistent. We examined potential differences between alexithymic and control participants in general arousal, reactivity, facial and subjective expression, emotion labeling, and covariation between emotion response systems. A depth of processing intervention was introduced. Fifty-four participants (27 alexithymic), selected using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, completed an imagery experiment (imagining joy, fear and neutral scripts), under instructions for shallow or deep emotion processing. Heart rate, skin conductance, facial electromyography and startle reflex were recorded along with subjective ratings. Results indicated hypo-reactivity to emotion among high alexithymic individuals, smaller and slower startle responses, and low covariation between physiology and self-report. No deficits in facial expression, labeling and emotion ratings were identified. Deep processing was associated with increased physiological reactivity and lower perceived dominance and arousal in high alexithymia. Findings suggest a tendency for avoidance of intense, unpleasant emotions and less defensive action preparation in alexithymia.

Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2013

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or s... more This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.