Safety behaviors are subtle avoidance strategies used to manage distress in social situations. Inconsistent findings create uncertainty about whether safety behavior use leads to poorer outcomes. To reconcile these inconsistencies, we leveraged a theoretical model of safety behaviors that classifies safety behaviors according to function using two categories: active behaviors that aim to enhance social performance, and restrictive behaviors that aim to reduce involvement within social situations. This informed development of a measurement model tested with a confirmatory bifactor approach in a mixed-clinical/community sample of 127 adolescent reports of safety behavior engagement. We identified two distinct factors of safety behaviors (i.e., active and restrictive). These factors predicted differential outcomes: increased restrictive safety behaviors predicted increased internalizing concerns and poorer social skills, and increased active safety behaviors predicted higher substance use. These findings have important implications for understanding conceptual and measurement models of safety behaviors in research and clinical contexts.