Social fears during adolescence: Is there an increase in distress and avoidance?

The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Italian Adolescent Populations: Construct Validation and Group Discrimination in Community and Clinical Eating Disorders Samples

“…Although, to our knowledge, no research has analysed the role of gender and age in the specific fear of judgment based on appearance (SAA) in adult or adolescent samples, the gender and age differences across adolescents found in this research converged with a large body of research indicating that in general terms body and overall appearance concerns, social fears and particularly negative evaluation fears, and social anxiety are more salient from mid-adolescence onwards and across female participants [26,27,32,34,37,47,62,69]. Developmental explanations for higher levels of SAA occurring in older adolescents include strong emotional investment in peers and the increasing pressures of the peer group [32,33,35].…”

“…While research has long documented strong inter-relationships between social avoidance and distress and fear of negative evaluation, among community adolescents [34,37,69], our adolescent community data provided evidence that the SAAS is also strongly correlated with the above variables. These results may suggest that adolescents who are afraid of appearance-related evaluation not only experience social inhibition, distress, and discomfort in social situations or with unfamiliar people, but also behave in an avoidant way in social relationships in order to prevent potential negative evaluations [21,24].…”

“…For instance, since the onset of eating and body-related symptoms during adolescence is linked to an increased risk for physical and mental health problems during adulthood [1,36], studying SAA among adolescents is particularly important to promote future psychological and physical well-being. Studying SAA among adolescents may also provide useful insights in the field of social anxiety, given that (a) adolescence is marked by increases in social anxiety, distress and avoidance and is considered as the time of onset for SAD [16,34,37], (b) appearance-focused concerns are included as one of the dimensions along the SAD spectrum [38], and (c) SAA has been suggested to be one of the core concerns causing individuals with SAD to fear public criticism [21].…”

“…Specifically, despite the role that SAA may play in the aetiology of clinical and sub-clinical EDs [11,22], none of the SAAS validation studies with non-clinical samples [21,24] examined the association of the SAAS with disordered eating behaviours and its capacity to discriminate individuals with low and high (i.e., at risk for EDs) levels of ED symptomatology. Likewise, while the inter-relationships between general fear of negative evaluation, social avoidance and distress are well documented [34,37], the degree to which SAA as a specific negative social evaluative fear is associated not only with social avoidance and distress levels, but also with other relevant constructs (i.e., teasing about appearance) [21,39] remains unknown. Regarding construct validity, the associations between SAA and appearance-related feedback (teasing) may be of particular interest, given that (a) SAAS was developed as a measure that taps into both social anxiety and negative body image constructs [24], and (b) teasing is theorized as a potential antecedent of SAA [24,39], and was found to be strongly related to social anxiety, body dissatisfaction and distress related to one's appearance [32,40].…”

Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A): Measuring Social Anxiety Among Finnish Adolescents

“…There is evidence that adolescents' symptoms of social anxiety-even at sub-clinical levels-interfere with making friendships and with their educational achievement [7][8][9]. Avoidance behaviours associated with social anxiety become more difficult during adolescence [10] and likely contribute to the worsening of symptoms to a clinical syndrome [11,12]. Thus, assessment and early identification of adolescents with heightened social anxiety is important.…”