We predicted that socially anxious people who are faced with the prospect of an interpersonal evaluation will act in an inhibited and withdrawn way. Subjects who scored low or high on a measure of social anxiety told four stories about themselves to an interviewer. In the anticipated-evaluation condition, the subjects learned that after they had told their stories, the interviewer would tell them her impressions of them. In the control condition, no mention was made of an evaluation. Judges rated transcripts of the stories. As predicted, socially anxious subjects who thought they were going to be evaluated (relative to anxious subjects in the control condition and nonanxious subjects in both conditions) told shorter stories, and the events in their stories were commonplace rather than unique. Their stories were also less revealing about them as individuals, and less vivid. Contrary to a second prediction, socially anxious subjects who expected to be evaluated did not act any less inhibited or withdrawn when their interviewers were described as very trusting than when they were described as very wary. Implications are discussed.
When people are motivated to tell an effective lie, they are less successful when others can observe their nonverbal cues. It was predicted that expectations for success would moderate this motivational impairment effect, such that it would occur primarily when expectations were low. Ninety-six women who thought of themselves as very independent told two stories (one true, one fabricated) that illustrated their dependence and two that illustrated independence to an interviewer described as very trusting (high expectations for success) or very wary (low expectations). They either expected to be evaluated by the interviewer (high importance of success) or did not (low importance).Judges rated the sincerity of each story. As predicted, participants' lies were especially detectable (in relation to their truths) when it was important to the participants to succeed but they had low expectations for success.
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