Elsevier

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Volume 12, Issue 3, May–June 1998, Pages 183-198
Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Social Anxiety and Peer Relations Among Adolescents: Testing a Psychobiological Model

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0887-6185(98)00008-5Get rights and content

Abstract

This study tested hypotheses derived from Trower and Gilbert’s (1989) model of social anxiety. Participants were 1,179 students (594 males and 585 females) in grades 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11. Participants completed the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents and a sociometric nomination task. Nominations from the following behavioral descriptors: most cooperative, class leader, fights the most, and easiest to push around, were used to classify students into four peer nomination groups (i.e., cooperative, friendly dominant, hostile dominant, and submissive). Results indicated that students classified as submissive reported greater social anxiety than those classified as cooperative, friendly dominant, and hostile dominant. Implications of these results for further study of the Trower and Gilbert (1989) model of social anxiety are discussed.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants in the study were 1,179 students (594 males and 585 females) in grades four (114; 64 males and 50 females), six (210; 95 males and 115 females), seven (325; 164 males and 161 females), eight (285; 145 males and 140 females), nine (169; 77 males and 92 females), and eleven (76; 49 males and 27 females). Students were recruited from nine schools; five from public and parochial schools in a mid-sized Midwestern city and three from public and parochial schools in a small, rural town in

Gender and grade effects

Previous research with the SAS-A has indicated a gender difference, with girls reporting greater social anxiety than boys (LaGreca, 1989). The sample presented in this study also produced significant gender differences on the SAS-A. Girls reported higher scores than did boys on the SAS-A total score and the FNE and SAD-N subscales, with no difference on the SAD-G subscale. Means and standard deviations for boys and girls on the SAS-A and associated F-tests are presented in Table 1. There were

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to test Trower and Gilbert’s (1989) model of social anxiety with a sample of adolescents. Youth were classified as cooperative, friendly dominant, hostile dominant, or submissive, based on sociometric peer nominations for four behavioral descriptors. It was hypothesized that submissive adolescents would evidence greater social anxiety than those classified as cooperative, friendly dominant, or hostile dominant. This hypothesis was largely supported. Students in the

Acknowledgements

Completion of this project was made possible by support from National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) small grant 5R03MHS263802 awarded to the second author.

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