Objectified Body Consciousness and Social Interaction Anxiety: Self Confidence as a Moderator

Abstract

Social interaction is one of the inevitable aspects in development process of all individuals. In adolescents’ period, all kinds of physical changes can happen which affect their physical perception about themselves. They may highly bother about their appearance. Present study aims to find out the relation between objectified body consciousness and social interaction anxiety among adolescents. Current study examined the moderating impact of self confidence in relation between objectified body consciousness and social interaction anxiety. Total 120 students were included in the study which comprised both boys and girls. The age range varied between 13 to 21 years. OBC scale (Objectified Body Consciousness, McKinley and Hyde 1996), Self-confidence inventory (Basavanna,1975), and social interaction anxiety Scale (SIAS) constructed by Mattick and Clarke (1998) were used to collect the responses from the participants. The dimensions of OBC include body shame, surveillance and control belief. Selfconfidence is another variable which is used as moderating variable. Result shows surveillance is negatively and significantly related with self-confidence. Body shame and social interaction anxiety shows positive relation in participants. Surveillance and social interaction anxiety found positively correlated. And self-confidence also shows negative significant association with social interaction anxiety of the participant. Current study reminds the importance of right perception among adolescents. The negative self-evaluation may spoil their life, so developing self-confidence is a vital process in mature social development.