Abstract
Little is known about how to predict which individuals with known temperament vulnerabilities will go on to develop social anxiety problems. Adolescents (N = 185) were followed from age 13 to 18 to evaluate psychosocial, prospective predictors of social anxiety symptoms and fears of negative evaluation (FNE), after accounting for pre-existing social withdrawal symptoms. Results from structural equation modeling suggest that lack of perceived social acceptance predicts subsequent explicit social anxiety and FNE, whereas the emotional intensity of close peer interactions predicts subsequent implicit FNE. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of peer interaction in the development of social anxiety, and the value of measuring both implicit and explicit FNE.
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Notes
The original subscale was used, except for one item that had the lowest correlation with the total scale in prior research on similar samples, which was dropped due to time constraints.
IAT D scores reflect the difference in mean reaction time across critical blocks divided by the standard deviations across blocks, which is conceptually similar to Cohen’s d (see Greenwald et al., 2003).
It was necessary to constrain the variance of one indicator to .1 for this model because of an initial negative variance estimate. This additional constraint accounts for the equivalent df between Model1A and Model2.
The surprising negative relationship noted between Baseline Withdrawal Symptoms and Explicit FNE appears to reflect a suppression effect. When Perceived Social Acceptance is not included in the model, the relationship between Baseline Withdrawal Symptoms and Explicit FNE is no longer significant.
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This study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH44934, R01-MH58066 & F31-MH65711-01). The authors are thankful for the statistical support provided by Nilam Ram.
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Teachman, B.A., Allen, J.P. Development of Social Anxiety: Social Interaction Predictors of Implicit and Explicit Fear of Negative Evaluation. J Abnorm Child Psychol 35, 63–78 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-006-9084-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-006-9084-1