Featured Topic: Social anxiety

Featured Topic: Social anxiety

Over our 53-year publication history at SBP, we’ve seen a number of research trends, some of which have come and gone, while others have garnered sustained interest among our authors and readers. Social anxiety, or “the fear of social situations and interaction with other people that can automatically bring on feelings of self-consciousness, judgment, evaluation, and criticism” (Erozkan, 2009, p. 836), is one subject with real stickability. The first SBP paper to feature social anxiety as a major variable was written in 1977, and the most recent was submitted last year, in 2024. Let’s take a look at how our authors have approached this topic over time:

O’Banion and Arkowitz (1977) examined how social anxiety influenced selective memory, and found that those with high, compared to low, social anxiety had a more accurate recollection of negative information about themselves. Later, Bokhorst et al. (2001) developed an instrument aimed at early identification of social anxiety in children, noting that intervention at the preschool age could help ensure children do not miss out on learning experiences like social participation with peers.

Bridging the age gap between childhood and early adulthood, Erozkan (2009) investigated the link between attachment styles—which are formed early in life between children and parents—and social anxiety in university students. The results showed that participants with a secure attachment style tended to be less socially anxious than those with fearful, preoccupied, or dismissing attachment styles. Parents themselves are, of course, not exempt from experiencing social anxiety: Büyükkayacı Duman and Kocak (2013) considered the effect of multidimensional social support during pregnancy on state anxiety level, and found that high social support effectively reduced social anxiety in this setting.

In the mid-2010s, two groups of authors worked collaboratively to publish papers concentrating on how peer attachment and social anxiety manifested in deaf and hearing adolescents. Lu et al. (2015) reported that gender had a significant influence on the link between peer attachment and social anxiety, with this relationship being stronger for girls who were not deaf than for boys who were not deaf, whereas it was at a similar level for boys and girls who were deaf. Ye et al. (2016) then examined social anxiety as a mediator of the relationship between parental attachment and loneliness, finding that while it did not mediate the relationship between father attachment and loneliness for either deaf or hearing adolescents, the relationship between mother and peer attachment was partially mediated by social anxiety for hearing adolescents.

In terms of strategies to control social anxiety, Bi and Liu (2019) found that creating mandalas was an effective therapy, and Cao et al. (2023) observed that physical activity was negatively correlated with social interaction anxiety. Huang and Jiang (2024), the authors of our most recent article on social anxiety, also examined the link between physical activity and social anxiety, reporting that exercise predicted social anxiety through the individual and chain mediators of body image and self-esteem.

Other papers in our archives and scheduled for forthcoming publication cover resilience, social face consciousness, cell phone addiction, and loneliness in relation to social anxiety. Keen to continue tracking the evolving research trends in this area from a behavioral and social psychology perspective? Sign up for a personal subscription to SBP to gain access to several thousand papers spanning the fields of social, behavioral, and developmental psychology.

The relationship between attachment styles and social anxiety: An investigation with Turkish university students – Atilgan Erozkan, 2009, 37(6), 835–844.

Social anxiety and selective memory for affective information about the self – Katy O’Banion and Hal Arkowitz, 1977, 5(2), 321–328.

Physical exercise and social anxiety among college students: A chain mediation model – Hongxin Huang and Yong Jiang, 2024, 52(11), Article e13656.

Early detection of social anxiety: Reliability and validity of a teacher questionnaire for the identification of social anxiety in young children – Koos Bokhorst, Frits A. Goossens, and Piet A. De Ruyter, 2001, 29(8), 787–798.

The effect of social support on state anxiety levels during pregnancy – Nuriye Büyükkayacı Duman and Cem Kocak, 2013, 41(7), 1153–1164.

Peer attachment and social anxiety: Gender as a moderator across deaf and hearing adolescents – Aitao Lu, Haiping Tian, Yanping Yu, Yi Feng, Xiuxiu Hong, and Zuwei Yu, 2015, 43(2), 231–240.

Attachment, loneliness, and social anxiety: A comparison of deaf and hearing Chinese adolescents – Jing Ye, Anqi Peng, Aitao Lu, Haiping Tian, Xiuxiu Hong, Hui Yi, Lu Wang, Pingfang Song, Linyu Zhang, Yilin Lan, Yunda Qiu, Wanyi Guan, and Wenna Wang, 2016, 44(6), 1033–1042.

Creating mandalas reduces social anxiety in college students – Yufang Bi and Yongfang Liu, 2019, 47(10), Article e8410.

Effect of physical activity on social interaction anxiety among Beijing drifters: The mediating roles of interpersonal competence and perceived stress – Fang Cao, Longjun Jing, Yang Liu, and Huilin Wang, 2023 51(12), Article e12825.