Social Anxiety and Social Perception: Construing Others' Reactions to the Self

Abstract

This study investigated whether socially anxious people differ from less socially anxious people in how they interpret the facial expressions of an interaction partner. Undergraduates answered a series of questions about themselves in a structured interview, replying to what they thought was the TV image of another undergraduate but was actually a videotape. The videotaped interviewer either maintained a consistently neutral facial expression or varied in expression (positive, neutral, negative) across three blocks of questions and answers. After each block, subjects rated the interviewer's approval of and interest in them. Analysis of these ratings revealed that the two social anxiety groups were equivalently responsive to changes in facial expression. Independent of this, socially anxious subjects made ratings that were consistently less favorable than the ratings made by subjects lower in social anxiety. Additional analyses tended to support the most straightforward interpretation of this finding: that persons high in social anxiety construe others' reactions to them more negatively than persons low in social anxiety.

How Our Personality Shapes Our Interactions with Virtual Characters - Implications for Research and Development

“…They feel more confident after their interactions and also judge their interaction partners as higher in self-esteem than introverts did [3]. People high in social anxiety construe other reactions towards them more negatively than persons low in social anxiety [4]. These examples show how our personality shapes the perception of our interactions.…”

The socially anxious perspective in face-to-face interaction: an experimental comparison

“…Some studies strongly support this position (e.g. Pozo et al, 1991). Social anxiety is identified with a submissive response to à fear' of such negative social evaluations.…”

“…If the person has high selfefficacy expectations (Bandura, 1977) he will expect a positive self-evaluation by the other, and a positive cycle is likely to ensue, resulting in a confirmation of his positive self-belief. However the socially anxious person has low self-efficacy expectations and therefore expects a negative selfevaluation (Pozo, et al, 1991). This can lead to avoidance, escape or the use of protective or`safety' strategies which prevent the person from receiving feedback, and hence no possibility of disconfirming the negative belief (Clark and Wells, 1995).…”

“…Consequent discrepancies between actual self-presentation performances and standards causes the individual's focus of attention to be turned on the self. Such self-focus results in an attribution that the self is the object of negative evaluative scrutiny (Pozo et al, 1991). Selffocus amplifies self-ideal discrepancies and exacerbates the tendency to give up attempts to reduce the discrepancy e.g.…”

The Moderating Effect of Self-Compassion in the Relationship between Self-Focused Attention and Social Anxiety

“…(Pozo et al, 1991;Clark et al, 1995). 사회적 수행을 하는 도중 자신 이 청중들로부터 부정적인 평가를 받고 있다는 위험신호 를 신체내부정보에 입각하여 판단을 내리는 경향이 있어 다양한 측면의 사회적 단서나 정보를 쉽게 놓칠 수 있다고 한다 (Clark et al, 1995;Mansell et al, 2003;Lee JY et al, 2009).…”