Fear of positive evaluation and social anxiety: A systematic review of trait-based findings

•Conducted systematic review to summarize the literature on fear of positive evaluation (FPE) and social anxiety by using a meticulous approach to identify relevant studies.•Thirty-three studies met inclusion criteria and primarily included sample of undergraduates, with some containing adult and adolescent samples.•Self-reported FPE was found to be distinct, yet moderately overlapping, from self-reported fear of negative evaluation (FNE) across multiple studies.•FPE remained associated with various measures of social anxiety symptomatology while controlling for FNE.•Findings provide support that FPE and FNE as measured by self-reported measures are distinct, yet correlated, trait-based social evaluative fears that uniquely contribute to social anxiety symptomatology. Although fear of negative evaluation (FNE) has long been recognized as a core cognitive bias in social anxiety, fear of positive evaluation (FPE) has received considerable attention over the past several years. The literature would benefit from a synthesis of the current state of the research in order to contribute to our understanding of FPE. A systematic review of the literature was conducted in order to address several questions: (a) Is self-reported FPE distinct from self-reported FNE? (b) Is self-reported FPE related to social anxiety symptomatology? and (c) Is self-reported FPE uniquely related to social anxiety symptomatology when accounting for self-reported FNE? Inclusion criteria included studies published in English, testing FPE and FNE with trait-based measures, and testing social anxiety with either self-report or diagnostic interviews. There were 33 studies identified in this review that provided convincing empirical support for each of these questions across community and clinical samples of adolescents, undergraduates, and adults. The systematic review did not have access to null results, present meta-analytic results, or include studies that evaluated FPE or social anxiety with experimental designs. The findings from the systematic review support updated theoritical models of social anxiety and highlight the importance of assessing and treating FPE in clinical interventions.