Abstract
Socially anxious and nonanxious men participated in a “practice” interaction with an experimental assistant, ostensibly in preparation for a second interaction with another student. The success of the practice interaction was varied by manipulating the assistant's behavior and the experimenter's feedback about the subject's performance. Subjects then rated their perceived social ability (i.e., self-efficacy), their personal standard, and their perception of others' standards for evaluating their social performance for an upcoming interaction. Nonanxious men expected their ability to match or exceed both their own and others' standards of evaluation in all feedback conditions. Socially anxious men, on the other hand, believed their ability would fall short of what others expected in all three conditions. Unlike nonanxious men, socially anxious men who experienced a successful social interaction believed others would expect more from them in upcoming interactions than did anxious men who experienced social failure.
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This article is based on a master's thesis by the first author under the supervision of the second author.
Preparation of this article was supported by a grant to the second author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The first author was supported by fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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Wallace, S.T., Alden, L.E. Social anxiety and standard setting following social success or failure. Cogn Ther Res 19, 613–631 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02227857
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02227857