Psychology

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2270

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Fear of Positive Evaluation

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Multi-Informant Assessments of Adolescents' Fears of Negative and Positive Evaluation: How Well Do They Predict Behavior within Interactions with Unfamiliar Peers?
    (2020) Botkin, Tessa; De Los Reyes, Andres
    Social anxiety disorder is defined by an intense and distressing fear and avoidance of social situations with unfamiliar individuals, particularly those situations that provide the opportunity to be scrutinized (APA, 2013). A core feature of social anxiety involves fears of negative evaluation (FNE) and fears of positive evaluation (FPE). These core features are most commonly assessed using the Fear of Positive Evaluation Scale (FPES; Weeks et al., 2008) and the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE; Leary, 1983). A robust line of evidence supports the psychometric properties of these measures when administered to adults; we know little about these measures’ properties when administered to adolescents. This study tests links between multi-informant reports on the FPES and BFNE and adolescents’ behavior within interactions with unfamiliar peers. We recruited 105 adolescents for the study. Adolescents completed a battery of measures examining their thoughts and behaviors and then completed social interaction tasks with a confederate. Parents completed a battery of questionnaires about themselves and their adolescent’s thoughts and behaviors. Both parents and adolescents provide reports about adolescents’ fears of evaluation that relate to adolescents’ observed behavior within interactions with unfamiliar peers. However, relative to parents’ reports, adolescents’ reports across FNE and FPE more robustly relate to observed behavior within these interactions. Further, across both informants and evaluative domains, FPE provide incrementally valuable information when understanding how adolescents behave within interactions with unfamiliar peers.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Mechanisms Underlying Difficulties in Intimate Relationships in Borderline Personality Disorder: The Roles of Fear of Positive Evaluation and Fear of Abandonment
    (2008) Rodman, Samantha Alison; Lejuez, Carl W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a chronic and severe disorder, and leading researchers concur that difficulties within intimate relationships are a central problem within the disorder (e.g., Gunderson, 1996; Linehan, 1993). The focus of the proposed investigation is to uncover novel mechanisms that may underlie these difficulties. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant relationship between BPD symptomatology and difficulties with intimate relationships in an undergraduate sample. Further, it was hypothesized that this relationship would be mediated by the fear of positive evaluation (FPE), which was previously only studied in social anxiety disorder (e.g., Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008; Weeks, Heimberg, Rodebaugh, & Norton, 2008) and the fear of abandonment. Many aspects of the initial predictions were supported. Specifically, BPD symptoms, FPE, and fear of abandonment were all found to significantly predict difficulties within intimate relationships, as operationalized by fear of intimacy score, even when controlling for theoretically relevant variables (symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress; fear of negative evaluation; and social anxiety). These findings are important because they illustrate that, even at the sub-clinical level observed in this undergraduate sample, BPD symptoms are related to impaired intimate relationship functioning. Support was not found for the hypothesis that BPD symptoms would contribute uniquely to FPE. Instead, BPD symptoms were not found to impact FPE once social anxiety was taken into account, a finding that is in accordance with the strong association between social anxiety and FPE that has been documented in the literature (e.g., Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008; Weeks, Heimberg, et al., 2008). Therefore, it may be hypothesized that the link between fear of praise and BPD that has been observed in the theoretical literature may be primarily due to the high concordance rates between BPD and social anxiety. Further, it was found that fear of abandonment mediated the relationship between BPD symptoms and fear of intimacy. Thus, among individuals with heightened symptoms of BPD, the fear of possibly being abandoned may cause a more general fear of intimate relationships, leading to conflict within intimate relationships and avoidance of intimacy. Clinical implications of this finding are discussed.