A Study on the Relationship between Social Anxiety, Fear of Negative Evaluation and Distress among Adolescent
Author : Jeevitha Jayaseelan and Latha Munuswamy
Abstract :
Social anxiety and fear of negative evaluation and distress has been found to be directly associated with each other in adolescence. The main objective of the present study was to analyse the relationship between social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation and distress among school going adolescent from a private school in Chennai. Adolescent boys and girls from the age group of 14-18 years participated in this study. A total of 195 students were randomly recruited and the data was collected using self-administered questionnaires, Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN), Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation (BFNE) by Leary (1983) and The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). The study result revealed a strong positive correlation between Social Anxiety and Fear of Negative Evaluation. Fear of Negatively Evaluated and the distress were found to be positively correlated and Social Anxiety and Distress were also positively correlated.
Among the 195 participants 72 have moderate levels and 58 of them have high levels of social anxiety. The fear of negative evaluation was found to be medium levels in 66 students and 65 student’s had high levels. Majority 87 students had severe distress disorder. Female students were found to be high in social anxiety compared to male students. Urban students were higher in social anxiety compared to rural students. The findings of the study may be useful for the school management to explore and to mediate further into wellbeing activities and programs of the school going adolescent boys and girls. School counsellors should be recruited in all schools and they should be involved in creating counselling modules taking into consideration the results of this study.
Keywords :
Social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, distress, adolescent, school students
