Public and Private Self-Consciousness and Social Phobia

Authors

• Debra A. Hope, State University of New York at AlbanyFollow
• Richard G. Heimberg, State University of New York at AlbanyFollow

ORCID IDs

Debra A. Hope

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

1988

Citation

Journal of Personality Assessment 52:4 (1988), pp. 626–639.

doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa5204_3

Comments

Copyright © 1988 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates/Taylor & Francis. Used by permission.

Abstract

The relationship between public and private self-consciousness and self-report questionnaires, clinician ratings, and various measures derived from an individualized simulation of an anxiety-provoking situation was examined in a sample of men and women seeking treatment for social phobia. As predicted, public, not private, self-consciousness was generally related to self-report and naive observer ratings of anxiety and to behavioral disruption during the simulation. The predicted relationship between public self-consciousness and how accurately subjects evaluated their performance in the anxiety-provoking situation was marginally supported. Hypotheses regarding the relationship between private self-consciousness and self-reported anxiety during an anxiety-provoking situation, and between private self-consciousness and the correspondence between physiological assessment and self-report, were not supported. The discussion focuses on methodological issues and the theoretical implications of the relationship between self-consciousness and social anxiety.