The Development of Children’s Understanding of Social Anxiety in Others

Abstract:A model of social anxiety was used to assess the development of children’s understanding of social anxiety in others. The model proposes that actors who are highly motivated to impress another but doubt their chances for successfully doing so experience the aversive state of social anxiety. Theories and research on social cognitive development were used to hypothesize that older rather than younger children would more readily recognize the effects of these antecedent conditions. Also, it was predicted that older children more than younger children would demonstrate a more thorough understanding of the affective and behavioral components of social anxiety. A study was conducted in which second, fourth, and seventh grade children were presented stories depicting actors in two situations: making a friend or acting in a play. Within each situation the actor was portrayed as either highly motivated or less motivated to impress an audience and either with high or low expectations of success. Subjects rated actors in these conditions as to how anxious the actors felt, what kinds of behaviors the actors may perform, and on general evaluative dimensions.Consistent support was found for the model in showing highly motivated and less able actors rated as being very socially anxious. Also, results supported the general hypothesis that older children judged actors in social anxiety settings in ways consistent with the model. Support was qualified, however, by a number of findings suggesting overall pessimism of older children, regardless of the actor’s particular condition. Evidence was obtained which indicated older children’s more sophisticated understanding of the possible divergence in self-presentation situations between what one feels and how one behaves.Dissertation Discovery Company and University of Florida are dedicated to making scholarly works more discoverable and accessible throughout the world. This dissertation, 'The Development of Children’s Understanding of Social Anxiety in Others' by Bruce Warren Darby, was obtained from University of Florida and is being sold with permission from the author. A digital copy of this work may also be found in the university’s institutional repository, IR@UF. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation.