Social Anxiety and Friendship Quality over Time.

High social anxiety in adults is associated with self-report of impaired friendship quality, but not necessarily with impairment reported by friends. Further, prospective prediction of social anxiety and friendship quality over time has not been tested among adults. We therefore examined friendship quality and social anxiety prospectively in 126 young adults (67 primary participants and 59 friends, aged 17-22 years); the primary participants were screened to be extreme groups to increase power and relevance to clinical samples (i.e., they were recruited based on having very high or very low social interaction anxiety). The prospective relationships between friendship quality and social anxiety were then tested using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Friendship quality prospectively predicted social anxiety over time within each individual in the friendship, such that higher friendship quality at Time 1 predicted lower social anxiety approximately 6 months later at Time 2. Social anxiety did not predict friendship quality. Although the results support the view that social anxiety and friendship quality have an important causal relationship, the results run counter to the assumption that high social anxiety causes poor friendship quality. Interventions to increase friendship quality merit further consideration.

Perception matters for clinical perfectionism and social anxiety.

Despite research documenting a relationship between social anxiety and perfectionism, very little research has examined the relationship between social anxiety and clinical perfectionism, defined as the combination of high personal standards and high maladaptive perfectionistic evaluative concern. In the current studies we examined whether clinical perfectionism predicted social anxiety in a large sample of undergraduates (N=602), in a clinical sample of participants diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD; N=180), and by using a variance decomposition model of self- and informant-report of perfectionism (N=134). Using self-report, we found that an interaction of personal standards and evaluative concern predicted both social interaction anxiety and fear of scrutiny, but not in the theorized direction. Specifically, we found that self-report of low standards and high evaluative concern was associated with the highest levels of social anxiety, suggesting that when individuals with SAD hold low expectations for themselves combined with high concerns about evaluation, social anxiety symptoms may increase. Alternatively, when an informants' perspective was considered, and more consistent with the original theory, we found that the interaction of informant-only report of personal standards and shared-report (between both primary participant and informant) of concern over mistakes was associated with self-reported social anxiety, such that high concern over mistakes and high personal standards predicted the highest levels of social anxiety. Theoretical, clinical, and measurement implications for clinical perfectionism are discussed.

Self and friend's differing views of social anxiety disorder's effects on friendships.

Social anxiety disorder is known to be associated with self-report of global friendship quality. However, information about specific friendships, as well as information beyond self-report, is lacking. Such information is crucial, because known biases in information processing related to social anxiety disorder render global self-ratings particularly difficult to interpret. We examined these issues focusing on diagnosed participants (n = 77) compared with community control participants (n = 63). We examined self-report regarding global (i.e., overall) friendship quality and a specific friendship's quality; in addition, we examined friend-report of that friendship's quality. Results suggested that social anxiety disorder has a negative impact on self-perception of friendship quality for a specific friendship, but that this effect is less evident as reported by the friends. Specifically, social anxiety disorder was associated with a tendency to report worse friendship quality in comparison to friend-report, particularly in participants who were younger or had less long-lasting friendships. However, friend-report did show clear differences based on diagnostic group, with friends reporting participants with social anxiety disorder to be less dominant in the friendship and less well-adjusted. Overall, the findings are consistent with results of other studies indicating that social anxiety disorder has a strong association with self-ratings of impairment, but that these ratings appear out of proportion with the report of observers (in this case, friends).

Interpersonal constraint conferred by generalized social anxiety disorder is evident on a behavioral economics task.

Although social anxiety disorder appears to confer impairment in friendships, evidence beyond self-report is minimal. We used the flexible iterated prisoner's dilemma as a simulated interaction with a friend with 27 individuals with the generalized type of social anxiety disorder and 23 demographically equivalent individuals without the disorder. Participants with generalized social anxiety disorder were less giving on the task. Lower giving was also moderately associated with interpersonal variables (e.g., coldness). A trend was also found for participants with generalized social anxiety disorder to show lower assertiveness on the task. The connection between generalized social anxiety disorder and friendship impairment appears likely to be partially explained by interpersonal constraint that is perceived by others as coldness and manifests in a behavioral economics task.

Perfectionism and social anxiety: rethinking the role of high standards.

Some researchers contend that high standards are an essential component of social anxiety. We tested this hypothesis in two independent samples. The consistent finding across samples was that higher scores on measures of high standards from two perfectionism scales predicted lower scores for social anxiety measures. These findings suggest lower, not higher, standards are involved in social anxiety, but more research is needed to clarify the implications of perfectionism, particularly the maladaptive form, in the context of social anxiety.