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Fear of Negative Evaluation, Social Anxiety and Response to Positive and Negative Online Social Cues

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Abstract

High social anxiety is associated with negative interpretations of social feedback, maladaptive attributions for success and failure, and excessive attention to internal and external threat cues. In the present study, 40 undergraduate participants with either high or low levels of social anxiety engaged in a series of social interactions with varying types of social feedback: negative, mixed-negative, mixed-positive, and positive. Given the increasing engagement in computer-mediated communication among individuals with high levels of social anxiety, these interactions took place via instant messaging software. Compared to participants with low social anxiety, participants with high social anxiety experienced more self-focused thoughts, negative thoughts, and state anxiety in response to increases in negative feedback. Participants with low social anxiety experienced fewer self-focused thoughts in response to increased negative feedback, resulting in a significant crossover interaction. Qualitative and quantitative differences regarding cognitive processes and computer-mediated communication among individuals with high and low social anxiety are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Emmilie Baker, Jennifer Blake, Laura Brooks, Allison Clark, Sara Gorcos, Kayla Gresinger, Hanna Grandgenett, Briann Grier, Alexandra Hardman, Zachary Huit, Dina Morales, Emily Reed, and Sydney Vanderheiden for their assistance with this study.

Conflict of Interest

Chandra L. Bautista and Debra A. Hope declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study prior to their participation and again after the study’s deception was revealed to them.

Animal Rights

All study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0308, USA

    Chandra L. Bautista & Debra A. Hope

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  1. Chandra L. Bautista
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  2. Debra A. Hope
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Correspondence to Debra A. Hope.

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Bautista, C.L., Hope, D.A. Fear of Negative Evaluation, Social Anxiety and Response to Positive and Negative Online Social Cues. Cogn Ther Res 39, 658–668 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-015-9687-3

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