Abstract
PurposeThis study investigated the relationships among intolerance of uncertainty (IU), social anxiety (SA), rumination, and pessimistic explanatory style (PES) in a sample of college students.MethodsQuestionnaires were completed by 533 college students.ResultsRumination partially mediated the relationship between IU and SA, and PES plays an important role in moderating the direct path (IU→SA) and the first part of the mediation process. When the PES is low, IU predicts SA less strongly but is related to rumination. Conversely, IU in individuals with a high PES predicts SA more directly.ConclusionRumination plays a mediating role between IU and SA, and the PES moderates the direct path and the first stage of the mediation model.
Highlights
Social anxiety (SA) refers to individuals’ strong, persistent, and irrational fear of being exposed to social situations (Hyett and McEvoy, 2018) and is one of the most common forms of anxiety
The results revealed 28 eigenvalues >1 without rotation, and the mutation rate interpretation of the first factor was 14.27%, which was less than the critical value of 40%, indicating that there was no obvious deviation of the common method in this study
Correlation analysis showed that IU was significantly positively correlated with SA, rumination and pessimistic explanatory style (PES)
Summary
Social anxiety (SA) refers to individuals’ strong, persistent, and irrational fear of being exposed to social situations (Hyett and McEvoy, 2018) and is one of the most common forms of anxiety. Chinese researchers emphasized college students are the main group affected by SA in China (Guo, 2000), because this age group has the highest interpersonal sensitivity (Peng et al, 2003). The local studies explored the trend of the social anxiety level of Chinese college students and found that compared with 1998, the score of social anxiety in 2015 increased by 0.27 standard deviations (Shi and Xin, 2018). There about 16% of college students report that they have serious social anxiety, which affects their basic life (Xu, 2010). The authors reported that IU contributes 4% of the explainable variance after controlling the fear of negative evaluation, anxiety, sensitivity, and neuroticism (Boelen and Reijntjes, 2009). IU is the main antecedent variable of SA, and it greatly affects our daily life
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
