Fear of Negative Evaluation and Social Relationship Among Adolescents

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Introduction

The fear of negative evaluation was first designed by Watson and Friend (1969) as the anxiety about the evaluations by others, being worried about the negative evaluations, and expecting that others will evaluate one in a negative way (Watson and Friend, 1969). Fear of negative evaluation also refers to worry of an individual in evaluation environment (sevimli, 2009).

People with fear of negative evaluation are highly concerned with seeking social approval or avoiding disapproval by others, and they may also tend to avoid situation where they have to undergo evaluations. This may significantly affect their social relationship. The fear of negative evaluation can limit a person’s interpersonal relationship with society. Fear of negative evaluation is an “apprehension about other’s evaluation”. The most significant feature of this feeling of the individual about being negatively evaluated or by a hostile manner by other people in hisher social circle is that the individual feels an excessive and continuous fear of being negatively evaluated, despised and ashamed in the existence of other people (Cetin, Dogan & Sapmaz, 2010). Literature reports that the fear of being negatively evaluated by other people is closely related with personality (Eaves &Eysenck, 1975; Keighin, Butcher & Darnell, 2009) and innate permanent properties (Brumariu & Kerns, 2008; Bruch & Heimberg, 1994).

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Cognitive theories put forth an idea that fear may result from processing biased information, particularly when anticipating a fearful event (Clark and McManus, 2002). Socially anxious individuals exhibit maladaptive appraisal of social situations, which is characterized by the selective retrieval of negative information about themselves. This biased information, gradually result in a negative self–evaluations (Rapee and Heimberg, 1997; Clark and McManus, 2002). People with fear of negative evaluation avoid most evaluative situation because they have an opinion that others will evaluate one negatively even in situation where the performance was good (Rapee &Lim, 1992; Stopa & Clark, 1993).

The fear of negative evaluation can be seen in following situation (Watson and Friend, 1969),

  • Evaluative situations
  • Testing
  • Being on a date
  • Taking to one’s superiors
  • Being interviewed for a job
  • Giving a speech

Watson and Friend found that individuals with high FNE work harder than individuals with low FNE even in a boring task where they were told their performance will be evaluated by others.

Measures of FNE:

1. Fear of negative evaluation scale (FNE):

Watson and Friend (1969) developed the FNE scale to assess fear of negative evaluation. The fear of negative evaluation is made up of 30 items requiring “true or false” answers. It describes broad social –evaluative anxiety and assesses individual differences. Internal reliability is excellent and test – retest reliability was r=.78. This measure also proved to be sensitive to therapeutic change.

2. Brief fear of negative evaluation:

Leary (1983) developed a brief version of FNE that is convenient for quick and repeated administration. The BFNE comprises 12 items with a 5-point Likart- type scale (1=not at all characteristic of me, 5=extremely characteristic of me). A high level of internal consistency was obtained for the items comprising the BFNE and test –retest reliability coefficient is .75. BFNE is a measure that is sensitive to therapeutic change.

3. Social avoidance and distress scale:

The social avoidance and distress scale was developed by David Watson and Ronald friend, 1969. SADS comprises 28 items requiring “true or false” answers. It is used to measure various aspects of social anxiety including distress, discomfort, fear, anxiety, and the avoidance of social situations. It has internal consistency reliabilityof.94 and test- retest reliability of.68.

Social relationship:

Building a good relationship between society is beneficial to mental health. However the challenges of building causal relationship to social ties are generally greater for mental health than they are for other health outcomes. The cost and benefits of building relationship to social ties are not randomly distributed, but they are systematically with gender, socioeconomic status and stages in life span (Kawachi and Berkman).

Stages in lifespan:

Certain stages in the life course are clearly critical in terms of social relationship. Emotional support during childhood from parents or caregivers has been shown to influence the risk of negative behavior or illness. Attachment in early life is critical to psychological development. At the end course of life, social isolation and loss of social ties are critical to psychological development.

Gender:

It is reported that women suffer higher rates of psychological distress than men.

  • Women tend to maintain more emotionally intimate relationship than men. When stressful events affect the person closed to them, women also likely to suffer from it.
  • Mobilize more social supports during periods of stress than men. Women are more likely to consider their children, spouse and close relative as their support, and they need help from them to cope with stressful event.
  • Provide more frequent and more effective social support to others than do men. Women tend to provide more frequent social support to those in need than men. Sometimes this may result in “support gap” (Belle).

Socioeconomic position:

The effect of social network and support on mental health also varies by socioeconomic position. Social network can do more harm than help to women with low resources, who often force difficulty in responding to the need of the society.

According to Debra Umberson, quality of relationships includes positive aspect of relationships, such as emotional support provided by significant others, and strained aspects of relationships, such as conflict and stress. Social network refers to the web of social relationships surrounding an individual, in particular, structural features, such as the type and strength of each social relationship.

Specific health conditions and preclinical conditions have its association with individuals who involve in social relationships. Recent several studies review articles provide consistent evidence linking a low quality o quantity of social ties with a number of health conditions including development and progression of cardiovascular disease, recurrent myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, autonomic dysregulation, high blood pressure, cancer, and delayed cancer recovery, and slower wound healing (Ertel, Glymour and Berkman 2009; Everson rose and Lewis 2005; Robles and Kiecolt Gloser 2003; Uchino 2006).There are three broad ways that social ties influence health,

  • Behavioral Explanations
  • Psychosocial Explanations
  • Physiological Explanations

Behavioral explanations:

Health behaviors encompass a wide range of health behaviors that influence health, morbidity and mortality. Some health behaviors such as exercise, balancing diets,-promote health and prevent illness. While some behavior – such as smoking, drinking, excessive weight gain- tends to undermine health. Greater involvement in social ties associates with most positive behaviors (Berkman, Bereslow’s, 1983).

Psychosocial explanations:

Many researches suggest possible psychosocial mechanisms to explain how social ties promote health. Mechanisms include are social support, personal control, symbolic meaning and mental health.

Social support refers to emotionally sustaining qualities of relationships. Social support may indirectly benefit health by promoting mental health or by posturing purpose and meaning to life (Uchino 2006).Personal control refers to individual’s beliefs that they can control their life, outcomes through their own actions. Social ties may influence personal control and in turn produce positive behavior (Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Thoits 2006). Many studies suggest that the symbolic meaning of particular social ties and health habits explain why they are linked. Studies on adolescents often point to the meaning attached to peer groups (Neck 1998; Waite 1998).

Physiological explanations:

Physiologists, sociologists and epidemiologist have contributed a great deal to our understanding of how social process influence physiological process that help to explain the link between social ties and health. Supportive interactions with others benefit immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular functions and reduce allostatic load, which reflect wear and tear on the body due, in part, to chronically overwork physiological systems engaged in stress responses (McEwen 1988; Seeman et al 2002; Uchino 2004). Emotionally supportive childhood environments promote healthy development of regulatory systems, immune, metabolic, autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPP) axis (Taylor, Repetti, Seeman 1997). Social support in adulthood reduces physiological responses such as cardiovascular reactivity to both anticipated and existing stressors (Glynn, Christenfeld, and Gerin 1999).

Cohen and Wills proposed two models in order to explain mechanisms by which social relationship influence mental health.

  • Main effect model
  • Stress buffering model.

It explains the specific aspects of social relationship on psychological health. The structural aspect (social network, social integration) of social relationship operate through main effect while functional aspect (social support) of social relationship operate through stress buffering model. The “main effect model” describes several pathways through which participation in social network can affect psychological well-being. In “stress buffering model” social support is hypothesized to prevent or modulate responses to stressful events that are damaging to health. Support may thus act on several different points in the pathway between stressful events and eventual mental illness.

Social support:

It is one of the factors which are used to predict the quality of social relationship among individuals. Cobb (1976) viewed social support as “clarity or certainty with which an individual experiences being loved, valued and able to count on others should the need arise.

In the “stress buffering model” social support is hypothesized to prevent or modulate responses to stressful events that are damaging to health. Support plays a significant role at different way in different situations between stressful event and mental illness. First, perceived availability of social support at the time of stressful event may lead to understand the value of situation thereby preventing a negative emotional and behavioral response. Furthermore, perceived stress or received support may reduce negative response to a stressful event (Cohen and Wills , Underwood LG, Gottlieb BH).

Social integration:

Social integration is the aspect of social network structure; it is defined as the degree to which an individual is connected to other individuals in a network. Social integration has three dimensions: first, the number of social ties and second, the type of tie (close friend) and finally, the frequency of conduct (House, Umberson and Landis 1988). It is the second factor which is used in this study to predict the quality of social relationship.

Integration in the social network may produce positive psychological states, including a sense of purpose, belonging and security, as well as recognition of self-worth. These positive psychological states in turn benefit the mental health by increased motivation for self-care (example: regular exercise, moderation of alcohol intake) as well as modulation of the neuroendocrine response to stress. Participation in community organization, involvement in social networks, and immersion in intimate relationship enhances the likelihood of accessing various forms of support, which in turn protect against distress. It is significant to recognize that many life events traditionally conceptualized are actually breaks in social ties (example: death of loved one). Other times, social network may influence the odds of experiencing a life event (example: unemployment) (Cohen S, Underwood LG, Gottlieb BH, Wills).

Social stress:

It is the final factor which can be used to predict the quality of social relationship in our present study. Social stress has traditionally been viewed as an overload, where the demands made exceed existing abilities (House 1974).

It is commonly understood that people feel anxious and distressed when they know they are either being evaluated or are about to be evaluated (Holroyd and Lazarus 1982). Several studies on social stress suggest that the link between evaluation and social stress.

  • People strive for self- enhancement. Negative evaluations interrupt

Or preclude reaching this goal, resulting in distress (Kaplan 1975: Pearlin et al. 1981)

  • A second way that evaluation creates stress is that the process or

Impending process of evaluation itself may interrupt normal identity maintenance process and produce distress.

Eating disorder

Eating disorders are serious conditions related to persistent eating behaviors that negatively impact the individual’s health, emotions and ability to function in important area of life. The most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders.

Individuals who have an unrealistic thin ideas they have body dissatisfactions, which increases the bulimic symptoms and negative affect. Because eating provide comfort and distraction from negative emotions.

Eating disorders often develop in the teen and young adults. Women are more vulnerable to eating disorders than men.

Eating disorders is possible that the disorders are linked as a result of an overlapping risk factor such as fear of negative evaluation. Fear of negative evaluation is considered both a vulnerability factors and social anxiety disorders. Because individuals high in fear of negative evaluation are concerned about others evaluation, have negative image of them, loss of social approval and strive to embody social ideals. The individual who have social anxiety disorders and body dysmorphic disorder are more concern about their physical appearances and the fear about themselves it lead to eating disorders.

Fear is related to drive for thinness and eating disorders symptoms and bulimic altitude. Fear of negative evaluation was correlated to eating disorders risk factors; pressure to be thin, thin ideal internalization, association of eating internalization, and association of eating pathology with several social appearance fears.

Fear of negative evaluation has two vulnerability factors. One is social anxiety and another one is eating disorders symptoms (Heimberg, Brozovich, &Rapee, 2010: Rapee &Heimberg, 1997).

Fear of negative evaluation and eating pathology is limited by cross section designs (Gilbert &Meyer, 2003). Social appearance anxiety, general fear of negative evaluation is the risk factors for both social anxiety and the eating disorders. Social appearance anxiety is shared as the risk factor to both social anxiety and eating disorders symptoms.

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