Abstract
This study was based upon a cognitive-attentional model of heterosocial shyness, hypothesizing that shyness would be related to self-evaluative attention, while confidence would be associated with task-focused attention. Subjects were 35 heterosocially shy and 37 confident high school boys who conversed with a female confederate under one of three instructional manipulations of attention: self-evaluative, task-focused, or naturalistic. While neither shy/confident status nor the instructional manipulation significantly affected focus of attention during the conversation, correlational support was found for the model. Shy boys had significantly higher levels of public self-consciousness than confident boys. The focus of subjects' thoughts during the conversation was related to self-ratings and judges' global ratings of skill and anxiety, and to actual conversational behavior. In addition, cognitive and behavioral differences between shy and confident subjects were found.
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Johnson, R.L., Glass, C.R. Heterosocial anxiety and direction of attention in high school boys. Cogn Ther Res 13, 509–526 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173909
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173909