Self-esteem is a factor that has an important influence on social anxiety. Many studies believe that one of the key factors leading to psychological problems is low self-esteem, but the performance among individuals with high self-esteem seems to be more complicated.
High self-esteem individuals also show inconsistencies and even opposite situations. For example, some types of high self-esteem individuals do not have problems in interpersonal communication, while other types of high self-esteem individuals do not, showing problems such as social anxiety and social avoidance.
The research hopes to use the relationship between self-esteem and social anxiety as the main body to explore the relationship between the two types of self-esteem and self-esteem structure and social anxiety. It also incorporates the other two main factors that affect social anxiety - fear of negative evaluation and fear of positive evaluation, to verify and further examine the important impact of self-esteem on social anxiety.
1. Self-esteem structure type and social anxiety
Research supports that explicit self-esteem and implicit self-esteem are two different constructs, so there must be an interaction between the two in their impact on individual behavior. Some studies have found that when explicit self-esteem is reduced to a certain level, it will also affect the level of implicit self-esteem, which may affect the self-esteem development and improvement of social skills of college students.
A large number of empirical studies have shown that:
Individuals with high self-esteem will have better psychological adaptability and social adaptability than individuals with low self-esteem. But some researchers also pointed out that although individuals with high self-esteem usually have a good sense of themselves.
However, some individuals seem to have some adaptation difficulties. For example, they often face problems in interpersonal relationships, such as social anxiety, social avoidance, and distress.
Jordan and others have made a detailed classification of high self-esteem, distinguishing between secure high self-esteem and fragile high self-esteem. The former has a stable, positive, well-structured self-view and can like and accept oneself, while the latter has a positive self-view on the surface.
However, there is less conscious self-doubt in the subconscious and is very sensitive to potential negative evaluation information. Once faced with threats or challenges, less conscious self-doubt will enter consciousness, prompting individuals to behave differently from secure high self-esteem individuals when facing some interpersonal problems.
In the study, individuals with high self-esteem had lower levels of social anxiety than individuals with low self-esteem, but there were also significant differences within high self-esteem. The high explicit and high implicit self-esteem group (secure high self-esteem) had the lowest social anxiety compared with subjects in the other three self-esteem types groups.
Individuals with high explicit self-esteem and high implicit self-esteem will have a stronger sense of security in their consciousness and subconsciousness. Therefore, in social situations, this stable and well-structured self-esteem structure will help them like, value and accept themselves, even their own imperfections, and will not react too violently even if they encounter threatening information.
However, when an individual's explicit self-esteem is high but his implicit self-esteem is relatively low, once the self is threatened or challenged, subconscious self-doubt will surface to the conscious level, and the individual will react nervously and anxiously. In fact, the results of this study also provide evidence for the heterogeneity of high self-esteem from the side.
Individuals with low explicitness and high implicitness also have insecurities, but this insecurity remains at the level of consciousness, and they are more likely to perceive threatening factors in the social environment, which in turn produces anxiety.
Individuals with low levels of explicit self-esteem and low implicit self-esteem, whether at the conscious or unconscious level, can better accept "the current self" - "I'm just not good", and will not have inner conflicts.
However, this negative "label" will also prompt them to adopt defensive self-protection, making it easier to perceive threatening factors in the social environment, resulting in an emotional experience of anxiety.
2. The partial mediating role of evaluation fear in self-esteem and social anxiety
(1) Self-esteem and evaluation fear
Self-esteem is an individual’s evaluation of oneself, and social evaluation from others is an important source of individual self-evaluation.According to the sociometer theory of self-esteem, when one is favored or liked by others, an individual's self-esteem will increase; when there are problems in interpersonal relationships (such as being rejected and excluded), an individual's self-esteem will decrease.
Individuals with high self-esteem have a good self-view. They seek self-validation, so even negative feedback from others does not threaten themselves. On the contrary, individuals with low self-esteem always tend to seek a kind of self-protection. Even positive feedback from others may pose a "threat" to them. The results of the
study show that self-esteem is significantly negatively correlated with both fear of evaluation, that is, individuals with low self-esteem are afraid of both negative evaluation and positive evaluation.
Individuals with high self-esteem have a stable self-esteem structure and a well-structured self-view, and can readily accept negative or positive evaluations from others; on the contrary, individuals with low self-esteem always expect to protect their "vested interests."
On the one hand, they are easily aware of threatening factors in the environment, are afraid of rejection, and are also afraid that people around them will make negative evaluations.
On the other hand, they have a relatively low evaluation of themselves, so they think that the appreciation or positive comments from others are not a true evaluation of their true abilities. Instead, they think that it is an "expectation" of others from them, so they would rather choose to avoid these positive or positive comments as much as possible to protect their "vested interests."
People often think that people with low self-esteem are afraid of negative evaluations from others, so if they are given positive evaluations, their self-esteem level should be improved. However, the results of this study show that even giving appreciation or positive evaluations to individuals with low self-esteem will not improve their self-evaluation, but will instead make them experience a higher level of anxiety.
This has important theoretical significance for cultivating and improving the self-esteem of college students. Therefore, in the process of school mental health education , positive evaluation of low-self-esteem individuals should be based on a specific analysis of the individual self and reality, and it is best to be specific to the mastery of knowledge, skills, personal qualities, etc.
(2) Partial mediating role of evaluation fear
The traditional view is that social anxiety is mainly caused by low self-evaluation, and the level of self-esteem will affect the level of social anxiety. People can't help but think:
How does self-esteem affect social anxiety? Are there other factors at play between them? Cognitive-behavioral models of social anxiety consider fear of evaluation as a core feature of social anxiety.
Individuals with low self-esteem always have a negative self-image of themselves and believe that others have excessive expectations of themselves, but it is difficult for them to meet such high expectations, so they are more likely to be negatively evaluated. These negative self-beliefs can lead to exaggerated negative emotional reactions (such as fear, anxiety).
Kocovski and Endler have also done similar research. Individuals with low self-esteem predict that others will evaluate them negatively, thus showing fear of negative evaluation, which in turn produces an emotional experience of anxiety. The results of the
study show that self-esteem can not only directly affect social anxiety, but also act on social anxiety through an indirect path. Specifically, it affects social anxiety by affecting two types of evaluation fears. That is, the two types of evaluation fears play a partial mediating role between self-esteem and social anxiety.
The reduction in self-esteem level will lead to an increase in the individual's negative evaluation of the self, and the individual will be more sensitive to the negative evaluation information of others in social interactions, which may eventually lead to an emotional experience of anxiety. This also well illustrates the mediating role of the fear of negative evaluation.
Individuals with low self-esteem always avoid letting others notice themselves. They are neither willing to create a negative impression on others, nor do they expect to leave a positive impression on others. Therefore, fear of positive evaluation also plays a mediating role in self-esteem and social anxiety.
In short, individuals with low self-esteem are afraid that people around them will negatively evaluate their "not good enough" performance, which will affect their social interactions and increase their level of social anxiety.
On the other hand, individuals with low self-esteem always avoid receiving positive comments and appreciation from people around them, because others' positive comments or successful experiences will make them experience higher anxiety.
Socially anxious individuals also worry about positive comments from others. Because individuals with social anxiety tend to interpret negative social events, whether they are negative or positive.
Individuals with social anxiety are afraid of negative comments from people around them and try their best to avoid positive comments from others. Therefore, even giving positive feedback and evaluation to this group of people will not improve their social anxiety. On the contrary, it may make them experience higher anxiety.
(3) Research Enlightenment
According to the above research results, in the consultation and treatment of individuals with social anxiety, attention should be paid to the role of self-esteem and two types of evaluation fears. The improvement of self-esteem plays a very important role in improving an individual's social anxiety.
So how to improve an individual's self-esteem level? Traditional experience holds that individuals with low self-esteem are afraid of negative evaluations from others, so as long as positive evaluations and appreciation are given to individuals with low self-esteem, their self-esteem level can be improved, thereby improving their social anxiety.
Therefore, this requires school mental health educators to consider two aspects when consulting individuals with social anxiety:
First, start by improving their self-esteem level and help them form a correct self-view. When evaluating them, they must not make general and unrealistic positive evaluations. Instead, they should choose the correct evaluation based on their actual situation, and more specific and skill-based evaluations.
The second is to start with two types of evaluation fear. We should realize that it is not enough to only consider the dimension of negative evaluation fear. We should also incorporate the positive evaluation fear into the cognitive behavioral therapy of social anxiety, change the self-image of individuals with low self-esteem and social anxiety, and help them form an understanding of positive evaluations of others.
