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01-04-2013 | Original Article

How Do I Measure Up? The Impact of Observable Signs of Anxiety and Confidence on Interpersonal Evaluations in Social Anxiety

Auteurs: Tatiana Bielak, David A. Moscovitch

Gepubliceerd in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Uitgave 2/2013

Abstract

Previous research suggests that socially anxious individuals perceive observable signs of social anxiety (SA) as being interpersonally costly and indicative of having less positive attributes, such as strength of character and attractiveness. In the current study, female participants with high (n = 60) versus low (n = 59) levels of trait SA imagined a hypothetical interaction with a male social partner and rated their impressions of this partner across five desirable attributes (ambition, happiness, strength of character, achievement, and intelligence), both before and after the partner was described as appearing either visibly anxious or confident. Results suggested that while both high and low SA participants perceived observable symptoms of anxiety as being interpersonally undesirable, the two groups differed significantly in their appraisals of observable social confidence, with high but not low SA participants attributing highly positive characteristics to confident partners relative to baseline. Combined with their perception that observable anxiety is undesirable, high SA participants’ idealized perception of confident partners as being “larger than life” may contribute to persistent feelings of inferiority and expectations of criticism and rejection in social encounters.

vorige artikel Changes in Beliefs about the Social Competence of Self and Others Following Group Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment

volgende artikel Perfectionistic Thoughts, Personal Standards, and Evaluative Concerns: Further Investigating Relationships to Psychological Distress

For the ratings of individual attributes that comprise the composite desirability index in the anxious partner condition, there were significant main effects of time for four of the five attributes, including strength of character, ambition, achievements, and happiness, F’s > 8.25, p’s < .01, \( \eta_{p}^{2} \) > .13. In these cases, the ratings across desirable characteristics decreased significantly from baseline to post-manipulation. For intelligence, there was no main effect of time, F(1,57) = .15, p = .90. There were significant main effects of group for strength of character and intelligence, F’s > 4.27, p’s < .04, \( \eta_{p}^{2} \) > .07. In these cases, low SA participants provided lower ratings overall. There were no group × time interactions for any of the desirable characteristics F’s < 2.03, p’s > .16. For the ratings of individual attributes that comprise the aggregated desirability index in the confident partner condition, there were significant main effects of time for two of the five attributes, including intelligence and strength of character, F’s > 17.44, p’s < .001, \( \eta_{p}^{2} \) > .23. There were no significant main effects of time for ambition, achievement, or happiness, F’s < 2.52, p’s > .12. There were no significant main effects of group for any of the desirable attributes rated by participants, F’s < 3.97, p’s > .51. In each of the five desirable characteristics, there were significant group by time interactions, F’s > 4.04, p’s < .05, \( \eta_{p}^{2} \) > .07. Follow-up paired t-tests were conducted separately on scores on each of the attributes. For four of the five attributes (ambition, happiness, intelligence, and achievement), the ratings of low SA individuals did not change significantly from baseline to post-manipulation, all t’s < 1.48, p’s > .15. Conversely, the ratings provided by high SA participants on all five attributes increased significantly from baseline to post-manipulation, all t’s > 2.49, p’s < .02. Although the ratings of low SA participants on strength of character increased significantly from baseline to post-manipulation, t(28) = 3.28, p = .003, the ratings of high SA participants increased more sharply, t(28) = 6.90, p < .001 and were significantly higher at post-manipulation than those of low SA participants, t(57) = 2.10, p = .04, despite not having differed at baseline, t(56) = .68, p = .25. Means and SDs are presented in Table 2.

Adjusted values for degrees of freedom were used because the assumption of equality of variance was violated for this test (i.e., Levene’s test yielded a significant p value).

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Titel: How Do I Measure Up? The Impact of Observable Signs of Anxiety and Confidence on Interpersonal Evaluations in Social Anxiety
Auteurs: Tatiana Bielak
David A. Moscovitch
Publicatiedatum: 01-04-2013
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Uitgave 2/2013
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9473-4

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