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.