Social anxiety in three Western societies

Abstract

The present study investigates whether empirical data support the notion that people in Western societies do not differ with regard to social anxiety. Social anxiety in Dutch students (N = 425) was compared with that experienced by students in the United States (N = 440) and Turkey (N = 349). Social anxiety was operationalized with the Inventory of Interpersonal Situations (IIS; Van Dam-Baggen & Kraaimaat, 1987, 1999, 2000), which measures two aspects of social anxiety, i.e., discomfort in social situations and frequency of social responses. The original Dutch version of the IIS (IOA) was translated into a U.S. English version (the IIS) and a Turkish version (KADE). First, it was shown that the American, Dutch, and Turkish versions of the IIS measured the same construct in terms of factor structure. Second, American students generally appeared more socially anxious than did the Dutch and Turkish students, whereas the latter's social anxiety slightly surpassed that of Dutch subjects. The American students also showed fewer social skills than both other groups, who did not differ in this respect. The results are somewhat more differentiated with respect to the domains of social anxiety, and they are discussed in terms of cross-cultural differences and their implications for clinical practice.

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“…For both Dutch and American respondents, each of the scales was found to have a dominant single-factor structure, and the observed factor loadings did not vary appreciably across groups. These findings provide empirical support for the cross-national comparability of the measures (Dam-Baggen, Kraaimaat, & Elal, 2003) and the integrity of the language translation process.…”

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“…In behavioral science literature, "social anxiety" is used interchangeably with the terms, "social embarrassment," "self-consciousness" and "interpersonal anxiety" (van Dam-Baggen and Kraaimaat, 1989). It is a complex concept that involves physiological, cognitive and behavioral aspects influenced by environmental and individual variables (van Dam-Baggen and Kraaimaat, 1989). The degree of ATSCI that is associated with social anxiety would appear to be dependent upon situations as well as personal characteristics.…”

“…The term "social anxiety" refers "to the subjective distress experienced in social situations" (van Dam-Baggen et al, 2003, p. 674). In behavioral science literature, "social anxiety" is used interchangeably with the terms, "social embarrassment," "self-consciousness" and "interpersonal anxiety" (van Dam-Baggen and Kraaimaat, 1989). It is a complex concept that involves physiological, cognitive and behavioral aspects influenced by environmental and individual variables (van Dam-Baggen and Kraaimaat, 1989).…”

Social anxiety across ethnicity: A confirmatory factor analysis of the FNE and SAD

“…For example, constructs that vary within different cultural groups, such as identity consistency and independent self-construal, were shown to statistically explain the higher rates of social anxiety observed in a Korean sample being compared to Euro-Canadians (Hong & Woody, 2007). Similar research has explored these differences with individuals of European and American decent, finding discrepancies in the intensity of social anxiety (Van Dam-Baggen, Kraaimaat, & Elal, 2003). Additionally, attempts have been made to examine the psychometric properties of social anxiety measures with populations culturally different (Olivares, Garcia-Lopez, & Hidalgo, 2001) from the ethnically homogenous European American populations with which previous psychometric and factor analytic studies have been conducted (Osman, Gutierrez, Barrios, Kopper, & Chiros, 1998).…”