Andrea Niles
Andrea Niles is a clinical psychologist, now in practice in California rather than in academia. Her 2015 study, carried out at UCLA and followed by a postdoctoral position in psychiatry at UCSF, tested whether putting feelings into words improves exposure treatment for public-speaking anxiety. It is the study this site uses for the most awkward result in that literature.
Who they are
Two terms first. Affect labelling is simply naming what you are feeling, out loud or in writing. Exposure treatment is the standard behavioural therapy for anxiety, in which a person approaches the feared situation deliberately and repeatedly rather than avoiding it. Her study combined the two, asking whether people who name the feeling during exposure end up better off.
Her affiliation was confirmed in the vault on 11 September 2026. Her current role is clinical rather than academic, and nothing further about her career is recorded here.
Key papers
Niles, A. N., and colleagues (2015). "Affect labeling enhances exposure effectiveness for public speaking anxiety", Behaviour Research and Therapy. First author. People who used more emotion labels showed more fear reduction, and those who had greater difficulty regulating emotion benefited most.
Key ideas
The result to report carefully. The benefit showed up in physiological arousal and not in self-reported fear. Bodies calmed down. People did not say they felt less afraid.
That split runs in the awkward direction. Most of the time a self-report measure is the one flattering the finding. Here it is the measure that refuses to co-operate, which is exactly why The Self-Report Problem has to be applied evenly rather than only when it is convenient.
More labels, more benefit. The dose-like pattern, with people using more emotion words showing more reduction, is what makes the study more than a single comparison.
Concepts on this site
Affect Labelling, the practice her study tested
Cognitive Reappraisal, the neighbouring regulation strategy
The Self-Report Problem, the issue her split result puts on the table
Find them elsewhere
Nothing confirmed. A search was run and no website or account could be tied to this person with enough certainty to publish. A name match on its own is not evidence, and a wrong link here would be worse than none.
Checked 2026-09-11. Handles and affiliations go out of date, so treat this block as a snapshot rather than a standing fact.
Sources
- Niles, A. N., and colleagues (2015). "Affect labeling enhances exposure effectiveness for public speaking anxiety", Behaviour Research and Therapy.
- Vault record, 2026-09-11. Affiliation confirmed; current role clinical rather than academic.