Abstract

Self-Presentation and Social Anxiety

Sociometer Theory

Implications for Treatment

Conclusions

References

Discussion
Board

The self-presentation theory of social anxiety (Schlenker & Leary, 1982) proposes that people experience social anxiety when they are motivated to make a desired impression on other people but doubt that they will successfully do so. The purpose of the present paper is to extend the self-presentational approach by addressing the question of why the possibility of self- presentational failure leads people to feel anxious. We propose that the capacity for social anxiety evolved as an adaptation to help people avoid relational devaluation--a decrement in the degree to which others value their relationships with the individual. Because survival and reproduction in the ancestral environment required people to be members of supportive social groups, affective- motivational systems developed to 'warn' people when their social acceptance was in jeopardy and motivate preemptive or remedial behaviors. To the extent that other people's willingness to enter into supportive, cooperative relationships with the individual is based on their impressions of him or her (as socially desirable, competent, attractive, moral, or whatever), the threat of making an undesired impression elicits (social) anxiety. This paper explores the implications of this approach to social anxiety and examines relevant empirical evidence regarding the antecedents of social anxiety, its behavioral concomitants, and individual differences in trait social anxiety.

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Presentation Number SAleary0485
Keywords: social anxiety, social phobia, self-presentation, anxiety, shyness