Global and Local Evaluations of Public Speaking Performance in Social Anxiety

doi:10.1016/j.beth.2011.01.004

Behavior Therapy

Volume 42, Issue 4, December 2011, Pages 601-611

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2011.01.004 Get rights and content

Abstract

Differences in the relative use of global and local information (seeing the forest vs. the trees) may explain why people with social anxiety often do not benefit from corrective feedback, even though they pay close attention to details in social situations. In the current study, participants high (n = 43) or low (n = 47) in social anxiety symptoms gave a series of brief speeches, and then self-rated their speaking performance on items reflecting global and local performance indicators (self-assessment) and also received standardized performance feedback from an experimenter. Participants then completed a questionnaire asking how they thought the experimenter would rate their performance based on the feedback provided (experimenter assessment). Participants completed the self- and experimenter assessments again after 3 days, in addition to a measure of postevent processing (repetitive negative thinking) about their speech performance. Results showed that, as hypothesized, the High SA group rated their performance more negatively than the Low SA group. Moreover, the High SA group's ratings of global aspects of their performance became relatively more negative over time, compared to their ratings of local aspects and the Low SA group's ratings. As expected, postevent processing mediated the relationship between social anxiety group status and worsening global performance evaluations. These findings point to a pattern of progressively more negative global evaluations over time for persons high in social anxiety.

Research Highlights

► Individuals with social anxiety use global and local information differently in evaluating their social performance. ► Socially anxious participants' global performance ratings became more negative over time, compared to local ratings. ► Post-event processing mediated the relationship between social anxiety and worsening global performance evaluations.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 48 high social anxiety (High SA) participants and 49 low social anxiety (Low SA) participants completed the study in exchange for course credit or payment. All participants completed a set of preselection measures, including the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and the public-speaking item from the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) that reads, “I get tense when I speak in front of other people” (Mattick & Clarke, 1998). Those who scored less than or equal to three-quarters of a

Sample Characteristics

As determined by preselection, social anxiety groups differed on SIAS scores; High SA: M = 42.73, SD = 11.08; Low SA: M = 6.82, SD = 2.27; t(88) = 21.73, p < .001, d = 4.63. As expected, the High SA group also reported more fear of negative evaluation on the BFNE (M = 41.42, SD = 9.52) than the Low SA group (M = 30.05, SD = 8.64), t(88) = 5.94, p < .001, d = 1.27. In addition, the High SA group reported more social performance anxiety on the SPS (M = 26.35, SD = 12.58) than the Low SA group (M = 8.63, SD = 6.30), t(88) = 8.56, p <

Discussion

This study was conducted to examine global and local evaluations of public-speaking performance in socially anxious and nonanxious individuals and to investigate how these evaluations change over time. Consistent with much previous research and our hypotheses, socially anxious individuals generally rated themselves as having performed worse on a public-speaking task than nonanxious individuals. Further, although the High SA group did not rate their global speaking performance as worse than

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^☆: This project was facilitated by an R01AG033033-01A2 grant from the National Institute of Aging to Bethany Teachman. The authors would like to thank the Program for Anxiety, Cognition, and Treatment (PACT) lab, especially Megan Viar, Deidra Childress, and Mark Varvaris for their valuable research assistance. In addition, thanks to Hillary Schaefer, who provided helpful feedback and editing on this manuscript.

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Global and Local Evaluations of Public Speaking Performance in Social Anxiety☆

Abstract

Research Highlights

Section snippets

Participants

Sample Characteristics

Discussion

Trends in Cognitive Science

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Personality and Individual Differences

Anxiety Disorders

Behavior Therapy

Journal of Memory and Language

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Behavior Research and Therapy

Behavior Therapy

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Behavior Therapy

Journal of Management

Behavior Therapy

Journal of Affective Disorders