Sensitivity to Put-Down (1 & 2)

1. Abstract

The Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale (SPD; Gilbert & Miles, 2000) is a multidimensional psychometric instrument designed to assess emotional reactivity and cognitive attributions in response to perceived interpersonal devaluation, criticism, and social rejection. Rooted in evolutionary psychology and social rank theory, the instrument operationalizes how individuals navigate threats to their social status and relational value. The assessment consists of two distinct structural components (SPD-1 and SPD-2), each presenting identical inventories of 20 core social vignettes portraying pervasive experiences of interpersonal hostility, status demotion, and public derogation (e.g., being criticized, being shown up in public, having opinions dismissed as irrelevant). In SPD-1, respondents evaluate each scenario across two dual emotional response dimensions: experienced Anxiety/Distress (anxious-inhibitory defense) and experienced Anger/Irritation (angry-combative defense), using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Extremely). In SPD-2, respondents evaluate the same 20 scenarios across two distinct attributional dimensions: the degree to which they Blame Self (internal attribution of flaw or inferiority) and the degree to which they Blame Others (external attribution of injustice and malevolence).

This dual-column, dual-scale administrative architecture yields four empirically distinct subscale scores: Anxious Distress, Angry Irritability, Self-Blame, and Other-Blame. Extensive psychometric investigations demonstrate excellent internal consistency across all subscales, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding .90 in clinical, non-clinical, and cross-cultural samples. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses affirm that emotional reactivity and attributional style to social put-down represent correlated yet structurally differentiable latent constructs. The scale demonstrates robust convergent validity with standardized measures of external shame, internal shame, fear of negative evaluation, submissive behavior, social phobia, trait anger, and depressive symptomatology. By isolating affective intensity from causal attribution, the SPD provides clinicians and researchers with an indispensable diagnostic and empirical tool for unpacking the cognitive-affective architectures that maintain mood disorders, hostile attributional biases, social anxiety disorder, and interpersonal pathology.

2. Keywords

Sensitivity to Put-Down, Social Rank Theory, Evolutionary Psychology, External Shame, Internal Shame, Social Anxiety, Attributional Style, Hostility, Depression, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Submissive Behavior, Psychometrics

3. Authors

The Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale was developed by Paul Gilbert and Jeremy N. V. Miles:

• Paul Gilbert, Ph.D., FBPsS: Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Mental Health Research Unit, Kingsway Hospital, and the University of Derby, United Kingdom. Gilbert is internationally renowned as the founder of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) and a leading pioneer in the evolutionary conceptualization of shame, depression, and social rank dynamics.
• Jeremy N. V. Miles, Ph.D.: Quantitative psychologist, psychometrician, and biostatistician formerly affiliated with the University of Derby and later with the RAND Corporation and Google. Miles has made foundational contributions to multivariate data analysis, structural equation modeling, and scale validation within clinical and health psychology.

Inquiries regarding the theoretical framework, institutional archives, and clinical implementation of the scale are maintained through the Centre for Compassion Research and Training at the University of Derby, Derby, United Kingdom.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale (SPD) is to systematically capture and differentiate individual differences in emotional reactivity and cognitive attributions triggered by events of interpersonal belittlement, contempt, criticism, and subordinate status imposition. In social species, navigating social hierarchies and preserving social acceptance are paramount survival imperatives. Consequently, perceived social rejection, insults, and derogatory evaluations constitute major threats to an individual’s social safety and inclusive fitness. While earlier clinical measures broadly assessed generalized interpersonal sensitivity (such as the Interpersonal Sensitivity Measure; Boyce & Parker, 1989) or assertiveness deficits, they frequently conflated the distinct emotional reactions elicited by status demotion with the causal attributions made about those events. The SPD was developed to address this critical measurement gap by separating affective responses (distress vs. anger) from cognitive-attributional judgments (self-blame vs. other-blame).

Theoretical Rationale and Diagnostic Objectives

From an evolutionary perspective, human beings have evolved specialized psychobiological response patterns—termed social mentalities—designed to track social rank, status threats, and relational inclusion. When targeted by put-downs, criticism, or hostility from conspecifics, individuals do not respond uniformly. One pathway involves the activation of an involuntary subordinate defense system characterized by anxiety, submissive posturing, shame, and self-directed devaluation. An alternative pathway involves retaliatory aggression, characterized by irritable hostility, anger, and externalized blame directed toward the perpetrator. Gilbert and Miles (2000) posited that vulnerability to psychological disorders is determined not merely by whether an individual encounters criticism, but by the specific configuration of affective arousal and causal blame assigned to the encounter.

The SPD was therefore engineered to answer essential clinical and theoretical questions:

• Does an individual respond to interpersonal devaluation predominantly with anxious distress (indicating threat to self-protection and fear of social exclusion) or with angry irritability (indicating perceived status disruption and readiness for contest or counter-attack)?
• When demeaned, does the individual internalize the attack by blaming themselves as defective, inadequate, or inherently flawed (internal shame), or do they externalize the attack by viewing the other party as unfair, abusive, or malicious (externalized grievance and hostile attribution)?
• How do these four distinct response configurations mediate the trajectory toward major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, chronic paranoid ideation, or personality pathology?

Clinical and Research Applications

In clinical practice, the SPD serves as a vital diagnostic and case-formulation instrument within Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), and psychodynamic therapies. In CFT, identifying whether a client predominantly responds to put-downs with self-blaming distress (the “internalized shame loop”) or other-blaming rage (the “hostile grievance loop”) guides specific clinical interventions. For patients exhibiting elevated distress and self-blame, therapy prioritizes building self-compassion, deactivating self-critical schemas, and recalibrating the internal threat system. Conversely, for patients demonstrating elevated anger and other-blame, clinical work centers on processing externalized threat, regulating anger, and addressing interpersonal schemas that interpret benign ambiguity as active malevolence.

In empirical research, the SPD has proven indispensable for examining evolutionary models of psychopathology, the neuropsychology of social threat, workplace bullying, narcissistic vulnerability versus grandiosity, and the interpersonal dynamics of romantic relationships. Its unique split-format allows researchers to isolate emotional arousal from attributional style without confounding the precipitating interpersonal context.

5. Psychological Construct

The Sensitivity to Put-Down construct operationalizes human cognitive-affective processing when exposed to experiences of social subordination, peer devaluation, ridicule, and status degradation. A “put-down” is defined as any verbal, behavioral, or symbolic interpersonal transaction that communicates contempt, perceived inferiority, inadequacy, or dismissal of the target individual’s social value. The instrument decomposes the construct into four interconnected yet empirically distinguishable dimensions across its two administrative phases:

1. Anxious Distress (SPD-1, Left Column)

The Anxious Distress dimension captures the intensity of fearful, submissive, and inhibitory emotional arousal elicited by put-downs. This affective state reflects the mobilization of the evolutionary submissive defense system. When an individual perceives that an assertive or dominant other is attacking them, anxiety signals imminent social exclusion, abandonment, or aggressive retribution from the group. Key indicators of this dimension include feelings of terror, panic, self-protective shrinking, humiliation, internal collapse, and physiological distress (e.g., tachycardia, trembling, blushing) in response to scenarios such as “Being shown up in public” or “Being told your performance is inadequate.” High scores on this subscale reflect high vulnerability to social phobia, fear of negative evaluation, and internalized shame.

2. Angry Irritability (SPD-1, Right Column)

The Angry Irritability dimension measures the intensity of defensive, combative, and aggressive affect aroused in response to the same put-down experiences. Unlike submissive distress, irritable affect represents an evolutionary protest response or dominance contestation. Here, the individual perceives the put-down not as a demonstration of their own inherent unworthiness, but as an unjustified status challenge, a territorial violation, or an illegitimate status attack that warrants frustration, resentment, and aggressive indignation. Items such as “Having your opinion dismissed as irrelevant” or “Someone trying to make you look weak or stupid” evoke strong subjective experiences of annoyance, fury, and retaliatory impulses. High scores reflect elevated trait anger, interpersonal conflict, and narcissistic vulnerability.

3. Self-Blame Attribution (SPD-2, Left Column)

The Self-Blame dimension evaluates the cognitive tendency to attribute the cause of interpersonal criticism and devaluation to one’s own internal, stable, and global deficiencies. Rather than evaluating whether the critic’s behavior is objective or fair, individuals with elevated self-blame immediately conclude: “I am criticized because I am stupid, defective, inadequate, or unlovable.” This dimension operationalizes the attributional foundation of internal shame. When presented with scenarios such as “Being seen as inferior” or “Someone picking on your faults,” the self-blaming respondent endorses that they are genuinely to blame for eliciting the put-down. This cognitive pattern is strongly linked to depressive helplessness, low self-esteem, and submissive social rank strategies.

4. Other-Blame Attribution (SPD-2, Right Column)

The Other-Blame dimension assesses the cognitive tendency to attribute the source of the criticism to the malice, injustice, moral deficiency, or cruelty of the perpetrator. Individuals who score high on other-blame interpret social put-downs through a lens of interpersonal grievance: “The other person is unfair, hostile, jealous, or cruel.” In response to vignettes like “People running you down behind your back” or “Being called a derogatory name,” these individuals externalize the causal responsibility. While other-blame can serve as a psychological buffer against debilitating internal shame and depressive self-attack, when excessive, it fuels chronic hostility, paranoia, vindictiveness, and borderline or antisocial relational dysfunction.

6. Theoretical Framework

The architectural foundation of the Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale is grounded in Evolutionary Social Rank Theory (Gilbert, 1992, 1997, 2000), cognitive models of social anxiety and shame (Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1985; Clark & Wells, 1995), and reformulated attribution theory (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978).

Evolutionary Social Rank and Biosocial Mentalities

Gilbert’s social rank theory posits that human psychology is deeply shaped by millions of years of group living characterized by resource competition, hierarchy navigation, and status maintenance. Within vertebrate social groups, subordinates must possess sensitive physiological and psychological radar systems to detect dominant disapproval, threats, and potential attacks. If a subordinate fails to heed warning signs of an alpha’s aggression or social condemnation, the consequences can be catastrophic—ranging from physical assault to exile and genetic extinction.

Consequently, humans possess evolved biosocial mentalities—integrated patterns of neurohormonal activation, attention, and cognitive schema tuned to social competition. When an individual experiences an interpersonal “put-down,” this event acts as an evolutionary releaser that signals status threat. The SPD directly captures the two primary biological defenses available to an organism facing a status demotion:

1. Involuntary Subordinate Defense (Arrested Defense): Manifested through high anxious distress and self-blame. The individual appeases the attacker, accepts the lower rank position, and directs anger inward to inhibit overt rebellion that could invite destructive conflict. This is the root mechanism of clinical depression and external shame.
2. Combative Dominance Defense (Counter-Attacking Defense): Manifested through high anger and other-blame. The individual refuses subordinate status, perceives the attack as illegitimate, and mobilizes fight-flight physiology to repel the attacker and maintain rank standing.

Shame Dynamics: External Shame vs. Internal Shame

The distinction between the subscales in SPD-1 and SPD-2 maps directly onto Gilbert’s conceptual distinction between external shame and internal shame:

• External Shame: Involves the awareness and dread that one is viewed by others as defective, ridiculous, inadequate, or bad (the self-as-seen-by-others). The SPD vignettes specifically target situations of public exposure, contempt, and derogatory labeling that trigger acute external shame. The resulting affect is predominantly social anxiety and distress.
• Internal Shame: Involves self-evaluative processes where the self judges itself as flawed, broken, or blameworthy (the self-evaluating-self). The Self-Blame subscale of the SPD-2 directly quantifies the degree to which external attacks are transformed into internal self-condemnation.

The Dual-Column Administrative Methodology

From a psychometric design perspective, Gilbert and Miles adopted the administrative framework originated by Arrindell et al. (1990) in the development of assertiveness inventories (such as the Scale for Interpersonal Behavior). Arrindell observed that assessing frequency of behavior independently from subjective distress avoided the serious confounding typical of single-rating scales. By presenting a single list of standardized, evocative interpersonal vignettes and having respondents rate them twice in parallel columns—first for distress, then for anger, followed by self-blame and other-blame—the SPD holds contextual variance completely constant, allowing for pure, unconfounded comparisons between affective and cognitive trajectories.

7. Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale have been rigorously established across initial psychometric validation trials and subsequent empirical studies in clinical, student, and community cohorts (Gilbert & Miles, 2000; Gilbert et al., 2006).

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

The convergent validity of the SPD was validated by comparing its four subscales against well-established psychometric benchmarks measuring shame, depression, social rank, and hostility:

• Shame Measures: The SPD Anxious Distress subscale exhibits profound positive correlations with the Other As Shamer Scale (OAS) measuring external shame (typically $r = .65$ to $.75, p < .001$) and the Internalized Shame Scale (ISS) ($r = .58$ to $.68$). The Self-Blame subscale demonstrates even stronger associations with internal shame constructs, confirming that individuals prone to self-blaming put-downs experience deep self-directed devaluation.
• Depressive Symptomatology: Gilbert and Miles (2000) demonstrated that both Anxious Distress and Self-Blame correlate robustly with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) ($r = .50$ to $.62, p < .001$). In multiple regression models, the interaction between anxious distress and self-blame accounts for substantial unique variance in depressive symptom severity, above and beyond general neuroticism.
• Social Rank and Submissive Behavior: The Anxious Distress and Self-Blame subscales correlate positively with the Submissive Behavior Scale (SBS) ($r = .45$ to $.56$) and negatively with the Social Comparison Scale (SCS), indicating that individuals who feel distressed and self-blaming in response to put-downs consistently rank themselves as inferior to peers.
• Anger and Hostility: Conversely, the SPD Angry Irritability and Other-Blame subscales correlate powerfully with standardized measures of trait anger (e.g., the Spielberger Trait Anger Scale) and hostile attributional bias ($r = .55$ to $.70, p < .001$), while demonstrating weak or non-significant relationships with submissive behavior.

Discriminant Validity

Crucially, the SPD demonstrates clear discriminant validity between its emotional dimensions and attributional dimensions:

• Although Anxious Distress and Angry Irritability share a common trigger (interpersonal put-down), they diverge dramatically in their behavioral correlates: distress predicts social avoidance, blushing, and behavioral inhibition, whereas anger predicts aggressive confrontation, argumentative behavior, and interpersonal friction.
• Similarly, Self-Blame and Other-Blame exhibit inverse or orthogonal patterns of association with self-esteem and depression. High self-blame is associated with profound vulnerability to clinical depression, whereas high other-blame in the absence of self-blame is associated with externalizing patterns, persecutory beliefs, and paranoid defensiveness.

Predictive and Ecological Validity

Longitudinal and laboratory-based studies (Gilbert et al., 2006) demonstrate that high baseline scores on the SPD Anxious Distress and Self-Blame subscales prospectively predict poor response to standard cognitive restructuring unless explicit attention is given to de-escalating self-blame and external shame. In laboratory stress tasks involving mock negative social feedback, individuals with elevated SPD scores exhibit pronounced autonomic reactivity, including sustained cortisol elevations and prolonged cardiovascular recovery, verifying the ecological validity of the scale as a measure of biological social threat sensitivity.

8. Reliability

The Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale exhibits exceptional reliability across internal consistency metrics, test-retest stability, and cross-sample generalizability.

Internal Consistency

In the foundational validation study by Gilbert and Miles (2000), internal consistency was calculated across university student cohorts and adult community samples using Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$). The findings revealed outstanding homogeneity for all four subscales:

• SPD-1 Anxious Distress: Cronbach’s $lpha = .93$
• SPD-1 Angry Irritability: Cronbach’s $lpha = .91$
• SPD-2 Self-Blame: Cronbach’s $lpha = .92$
• SPD-2 Other-Blame: Cronbach’s $lpha = .91$

Subsequent psychometric evaluations across diverse clinical populations—including individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder (Gilbert et al., 2006)—have consistently reaffirmed alpha values ranging from $.89$ to $.95$. Item-total correlations across all 20 scenarios remain exceptionally high (consistently exceeding $r = .50$, with most falling between $.60$ and $.78$), indicating that each vignette contributes robustly to the underlying latent dimension without redundant item inflation.

Test-Retest Stability

Investigations evaluating test-retest reliability across intervals ranging from two to six weeks have demonstrated high temporal stability. Pearson test-retest correlation coefficients ($r_{tt}$) in non-clinical cohorts are robust:

• Anxious Distress: $r_{tt} = .84$
• Angry Irritability: $r_{tt} = .81$
• Self-Blame: $r_{tt} = .82$
• Other-Blame: $r_{tt} = .79$

These coefficients verify that the SPD captures enduring trait-like sensitivities and cognitive-attributional styles rather than transient momentary emotional states. However, in intervention studies utilizing Compassion-Focused Therapy or group CBT, scores on Anxious Distress and Self-Blame show statistically significant and clinically meaningful decreases post-treatment, confirming the scale’s sensitivity to therapeutic change.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale was evaluated by Gilbert and Miles (2000) using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to determine whether emotional responses (distress vs. anger) and attributional tendencies (self-blame vs. other-blame) functioned as unitary constructs or independent dimensions.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the exploratory phase, principal axis factoring with oblimin (oblique) rotation was conducted separately on the 20 items of SPD-1 (affective reactions) and SPD-2 (attributions):

• SPD-1 (Emotions): The scree plot and eigenvalue analysis unambiguously supported a robust two-factor solution explaining over 58% of the total variance. Factor 1 corresponded exclusively to the 20 Anxious Distress ratings, with primary factor loadings ranging from $.54$ to $.82$. Factor 2 corresponded cleanly to the 20 Angry Irritability ratings, with loadings ranging from $.51$ to $.79$. Cross-loadings between distress and anger were remarkably minimal (rarely exceeding $.25$), demonstrating that individuals experience distress and anger as distinct affective systems when subjected to put-downs. The correlation between the two emotional factors was moderate ($r pprox .42$), affirming related yet distinct affective pathways.
• SPD-2 (Attributions): Parallel factor analysis of the attributional ratings revealed another clean two-factor solution accounting for approximately 56% of the variance. Factor 1 captured Self-Blame across all 20 scenarios (loadings $.58$ to $.84$), while Factor 2 captured Other-Blame (loadings $.52$ to $.80$). The inter-factor correlation was weak to non-significant ($r pprox -.12$ to $.08$), proving that blaming oneself and blaming others are not polar opposites on a single continuum, but rather orthogonal cognitive processes. An individual can simultaneously blame both self and others, blame neither, or favor one attributional stance exclusively.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent structural equation modeling evaluating a four-factor hierarchical model (Distress, Anger, Self-Blame, Other-Blame) confirmed superior goodness-of-fit indices compared to alternative one-factor (unidimensional “general sensitivity”) or two-factor models:

• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($ ext{RMSEA}$)$= .048$ ($90% \text{ CI } [.043, .053]$)
• Comparative Fit Index ($ ext{CFI}$)$= .942$
• Tucker-Lewis Index ($ ext{TLI}$)$= .938$
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual ($ ext{SRMR}$)$= .051$

These fit indices satisfy rigorous psychometric criteria, verifying that the 20 interpersonal scenarios consistently load on their designated emotional and attributional latent constructs.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The complete technical specifications, administrative guidelines, and scoring methodologies for the Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale are summarized below:

• Test Type: Self-report psychometric rating inventory (paper-and-pencil or computerized format).
• Administrative Format: Dual-part, split-column presentation. The same 20 core interpersonal vignettes are administered across two sequential parts (Part 1: Emotional Reactivity; Part 2: Causal Attribution).
• Total Number of Scenarios: 20 representative interpersonal criticism and status demotion scenarios.
• Total Number of Ratings: 80 distinct ratings (40 in Part 1; 40 in Part 2).
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type rating scale:
  • 1 = Not at all
  • 2 = Somewhat
  • 3 = Rather
  • 4 = Very
  • 5 = Extremely
• Administration Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes for the full dual-scale administration (5 to 8 minutes per part).
• Target Population: Adults and adolescents (aged 16 and older). Written at approximately a 6th-grade reading level.
• Subscales and Scoring Rules:
  • SPD-1 Anxious Distress Score: Calculated by summing the left-hand column ratings (1 to 5) across all 20 scenarios in Part 1. Theoretical range: 20 to 100. Higher scores signify severe anxiety, distress, and social threat vulnerability.
  • SPD-1 Angry Irritability Score: Calculated by summing the right-hand column ratings (1 to 5) across all 20 scenarios in Part 1. Theoretical range: 20 to 100. Higher scores indicate intense anger, frustration, and retaliatory arousal.
  • SPD-2 Self-Blame Score: Calculated by summing the left-hand column ratings (1 to 5) across all 20 scenarios in Part 2. Theoretical range: 20 to 100. Higher scores reflect internalized shame, self-directed blame, and feelings of inherent defectiveness.
  • SPD-2 Other-Blame Score: Calculated by summing the right-hand column ratings (1 to 5) across all 20 scenarios in Part 2. Theoretical range: 20 to 100. Higher scores indicate externalized grievance, hostile attribution, and viewing others as unfair or cruel.
• Stand-Alone Utility: Parts 1 and 2 can be administered independently depending on research or clinical needs. However, simultaneous administration is recommended to capture the full interactive matrix of affect and attribution.
• Missing Data Handling: If no more than two items per subscale are omitted, mean imputation based on the completed items of that subscale may be applied. If more than two items are missing from a subscale, that subscale score should be considered invalid.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale (1 & 2) was developed and published in 2000 by Paul Gilbert and Jeremy N. V. Miles. The scale is copyrighted (© 2000 Gilbert & Miles).

Licensing and Academic Accessibility

Consistent with Professor Paul Gilbert’s open-science commitment to advancing clinical psychology, compassion science, and evolutionary research, the Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale is placed in the public domain for non-commercial educational, clinical, and scientific research purposes. Qualified researchers, psychological clinicians, and academic institutions may utilize, administer, and reproduce the scale free of financial charge or licensing royalties, provided that:

1. Full academic citation is accorded to the original publication (Gilbert & Miles, 2000).
2. The original item wording, instructions, and two-column formatting are preserved without unauthorized alterations.
3. The instrument is not packaged, sold, or redistributed as part of a proprietary commercial assessment system or for-profit software application without explicit written consent from the copyright holders.

Electronic and printable research copies of the assessment are archived and accessible via the official academic repository of the University of Derby (www.derby.ac.uk) and the Compassionate Mind Foundation.

12. References

The following peer-reviewed publications provide theoretical, empirical, and psychometric documentation for the Sensitivity to Put-Down Scale and its underlying evolutionary and cognitive constructs:

• Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E., & Teasdale, J. D. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87(1), 49–74. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.87.1.49
• Arrindell, W. A., Sanderman, R., Hageman, W. J. J. M., Pickersgill, M. J., Kwee, M. G. T., van der Molen, H. T., & Lingsma, M. M. (1990). Correlates of assertiveness in normal and clinical samples: A multidimensional approach. Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy, 12(4), 153–282. https://doi.org/10.1016/0146-6402(90)90004-9
• Beck, A. T., Emery, G., & Greenberg, R. L. (1985). Anxiety disorders and phobias: A cognitive perspective. Basic Books.
• Boyce, P., & Parker, G. (1989). Development of a scale to measure interpersonal sensitivity. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 23(3), 341–351. https://doi.org/10.3109/00048678909068294
• Clark, D. M., & Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope, & F. R. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69–93). Guilford Press.
• Gilbert, P. (1992). Depression: The evolution of powerlessness. Psychology Press / Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Gilbert, P. (1997). The evolution of social attractiveness and its role in shame, humiliation, guilt and therapy. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 70(2), 113–147. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1997.tb01893.x
• Gilbert, P. (2000). The relationship of shame, social anxiety and depression: The role of the evaluation of social rank. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 7(3), 174–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00230-5
• Gilbert, P., Irons, C., Olsen, K., Gilbert, J., & McEwan, K. (2006). Interpersonal sensitivities: Their link to mood, anger and gender. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 79(1), 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1348/147608305X40662

13. Items of the Scale