Investigating a critical evaluation tendency in social anxiety

Abstract

Models of social phobia suggest that socially anxious individuals have critical evaluation expectancies, expecting others to be inherently critical in their appraisal of performance. One potential source for these expectancies is generalization or projection of an individual's own critical evaluation tendencies. We recruited 89 students, informing them that they would be asked to deliver an impromptu speech. Participants were shown three short pre-recorded speeches and asked to rate the performance of the speaker in each. Participants were also asked to rate how well they thought they would perform. While social anxiety symptoms were correlated with predictions of poorer self-performance, the relationship between social anxiety symptoms and a tendency to more critically appraise the performance of others was only observed for speakers who displayed low levels of anxiety symptoms.