Social anxiety and self-presentation: A conceptualization model

Presents a self-presentation approach to the study of social anxiety that proposes that social anxiety arises when individuals are motivated to make a preferred impression on real or imagined audiences, but perceive or imagine unsatisfactory evaluative reactions from subjectively important audiences. The authors presume that specific situational and dispositional antecedents of social anxiety operate by influencing people's motivation to impress others and their expectations of satisfactorily doing so. In contrast to drive models of anxiety but consistent with social learning theory, it is argued that the cognitive state of the individual mediates both affective arousal and behavior. The traditional inverted--U relation between anxiety and performance is reexamined in this light. Counseling implications are considered, including the recommendation that treatments be tailored to specific types of self-presentational problems. (142 ref)