Correlation between social anxiety and negative affect

Abstract

Social Anxiety Disorder is the third largest mental health care problem in the world today. Social anxiety (SA) has been studied widely in terms of epidemiology, aetiology, pathology, comorbidity, etc. There have been few recent studies that have tried to assess the relationship between social anxiety and negative affect (NA) including diminished positive affect. However, very few studies have been conducted to specifically study the correlation SA and NA share by examining specific negative affective states. The aim of this research is to study the relationship between SA and NA in detail. The sample size is 101 (male = 26, Female = 75). Ages ranges were 18 to 25 yrs. (young adults). Purposive sampling through online platform was used. A google form was created consisting informed consent, demographic details, Leibowitz Social Anxiety Scale – SR (LSAS-SR) and Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule – SF (PANAS-SF), which was sent to the participants. Mean scores of SA and NA were 59 and 26.9 respectively. Pearson’s correlation between SA and NA was .467 (p<0.01). A moderately strong correlation of SA was found with affective states of nervousness (.508, p<0.01) and afraid (.419, p<0.01) followed by guilty (.349, p<0.01), distressed (.325, p<0.01) and ashamed (.303, p<0.01). The weakest correlation of SA was found with hostility (.222, p<0.05). Further research is needed to examine the relationship of SA and other negative affect such as anger, disgust, sadness, loneliness, etc. to better understand affective states present with SA and formulate treatment models accordingly.