The Role of Social Anxiety in Public Speaking: To what extent does self-concept of adolescents influence social feedback learning rate?

Social interactions are an integral part of the human experience, with social feedback being a prominent aspect of daily interaction However, for individuals diagnosed with SAD social feedback is an anxiety-inducing scenario. Previous research aimed to investigate the effect of social feedback on individuals' views of themselves, thus comparing differences between healthy controls and individuals with SAD. The results of this experiment indicated a negativity bias towards social feedback compared to a positivity bias in healthy controls. The current study, the Changing Minds Study, was closely based on the aforementioned study and aimed to examine the relationship between self-concept and social feedback learning rates in adolescents. Similar to the prior mentioned study, participants (N=80) of the Changing Minds Study were asked to perform a speech with the premise of being socially evaluated by judges in another room. However, this was a deceptive measure. The results of the study...Show moreSocial interactions are an integral part of the human experience, with social feedback being a prominent aspect of daily interaction However, for individuals diagnosed with SAD social feedback is an anxiety-inducing scenario. Previous research aimed to investigate the effect of social feedback on individuals' views of themselves, thus comparing differences between healthy controls and individuals with SAD. The results of this experiment indicated a negativity bias towards social feedback compared to a positivity bias in healthy controls. The current study, the Changing Minds Study, was closely based on the aforementioned study and aimed to examine the relationship between self-concept and social feedback learning rates in adolescents. Similar to the prior mentioned study, participants (N=80) of the Changing Minds Study were asked to perform a speech with the premise of being socially evaluated by judges in another room. However, this was a deceptive measure. The results of the study were partly congruent with previous studies, finding a positivity bias toward social feedback in healthy individuals. This means that they update their self-concept more when receiving positive feedback, than when receiving negative feedback. In conclusion, Self-Concept and Positive Social Feedback Learning were significantly positively correlated, showing that Self-Concept is closely linked to the updating of one’s views of the self when receiving positive feedback. However, none of the other correlations showed to be significant. Nevertheless, trends supporting the claim that individuals with SAD have a negativity bias toward social feedback were shown.Show less

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The Role of Social Anxiety in Public Speaking: To what extent does self-concept of adolescents influence social feedback learning rate?