Social anxiety, public self-consciousness, and variability of behavior.

Abstract

A number of researchers have suggested that individuals vary in how they present themselves across time and situations ( 4 ) and that social anxiety and public selfconsciousness are possible predictors of such variability (1, 2 ) . Lennox ( 2 ) obtained only a moderate correlation between social anxiety and cross-situational variability and no correlation between public self-consciousness and variability of behavior, however, social anxiety and public self-awareness were moderately correlated. The present study is a replication of the Lennox ( 2 ) study. Altogether 40 men and 4 6 women were drawn voluntarily from a two-year nursing program and from an introductory psychology class of a junior college in Southern California. Subjects completed the Self-consciousness Scale ( 1 ) which measures public self-consciousness and social anxiety and the Lennox-Wolfe Cross-sirnational Variability of Behavior Scale ( 3 ) as one 56-item self-report survey. The response format was a six-point Likert scale ranging from Certainly, always false to Certainly, always true. Men and women did not score differently o n the scales and the total means and standard deviations for public self-consciousness, social anxiety, and cross-situational variability scores were 20.7 and 5.5, 16.2 and 3.7, and 18.3 and 4.6, respectively, which are nor different from the ones Lennox ( 2 ) obtained. Unlike Lennox, no correlation was obtained berween social anxiety and public self-consciousness ( T = .14). However, consistent with Lennox, the cross-situational variable was not correlated with public self-awareness ( r = .15) but correlated significantly with social anxiety ( r = .32, p < .01). These results replicate the findings by Lennox ( 2 ) and support the contention that variability of behavior across situations may occur with a motive to avoid disapproval or negative evaluation. The issue of the relative contributions of dispositional and situational variables to the variability of behavior requires more substantial groups and analysis of tests.