Social Anxiety and Phobia in Adolescents: Development, Manifestation and Intervention Strategies by Klaus Ranta & Annette M La Greca & Luis-Joaquin Garcia-Lopez & Mauri Marttunen

Author:Klaus Ranta & Annette M La Greca & Luis-Joaquin Garcia-Lopez & Mauri Marttunen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9783319167022
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2015-06-17T21:00:00+00:00

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A.W. Blöte et al.

as the participants. When analyzing the whole high socially anxious group, Miers

et al. ( 2009 ) found that participants and observers were in agreement about the

poorer social skills of high socially anxious youth. This suggested that the percep-

tions of high socially anxious youth were warranted. However, the authors also split

the high socially anxious group into two groups using the observers’ performance

evaluations: those with a good speech performance and those with a poor speech

performance. This analysis showed that the negative self-perceptions were justifi ed

only for the socially anxious youth who had a poor speech performance. In contrast,

for the socially anxious youth whose performance was judged as good, their nega-

tive perceptions were unwarranted. Hence, the “kernel-of-truth” hypothesis seems

to apply only to socially anxious youth who are indeed less socially skilled (as

determined by adult observers).

In sum, with regard to the way they are treated by peers, the negative cognitions

of socially anxious adolescents seem partly warranted and partly colored by internal

processes. Socially anxious adolescents rightly expect negative responses from oth-

ers. Based on these expectations, they interpret neutral responses in a negative way.

As far as adolescents’ self-perceptions of social performance are concerned, they

are “incorrect” in thinking that they make a nervous impression (more nervous than

others), and some of them are right in evaluating their own social performance as

poor. Socially anxious adolescents who perform well may have negatively biased

self-perceptions, whereas poor performing socially anxious adolescents may be cor-

rect in judging their performance as poor.

It seems important that future studies make a direct comparison between self-

evaluations of performance, on the one hand, and performance evaluations by peers

(using the same measure) on the other hand. In this way, we can better investigate

whether the negative self-perceptions are based on a kernel of truth or are biased.

Implications: How to Break the Vicious Cycle?

The school environment, and more specifi cally the formal classroom situation,

clearly presents a real challenge to socially anxious adolescents. A number of these

adolescents experience considerable distress at school and try to avoid distressing

classroom situations. In some cases, socially anxious adolescents may show a more

severe form of avoidance by refusing to go to school altogether. Moreover, studies

indicate that school refusers with AD or SAD have poorer school attendance and

that SAD among school-refusing adolescents is often treatment resistant. In all, this

chapter sketches a rather bleak picture of the school experiences of socially anxious

students.

What makes successful interventions for socially anxious students particularly

diffi cult is that these students not only think that they perform poorly in social

situations but that some of them actually are less socially skilled, less confi dent,

and less expressive and consequently elicit negative responses from peers. At fi rst

glance, peers see them as different and reject them. Later on, when social

7 Social Anxiety and the School Environment of Adolescents

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relationships are being formed, socially anxious students may be victimized.

In sum, these students are trapped in a vicious cycle of social anxiety, negative

expectations about their social performance and how peers will respond to their

performance, actual negative peer responses, and, as a result, increased social

anxiety.

It is a complex task

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