Bivalent Fears of Evaluation: A Developmentally-Informed, Multi-Informant, and Multi-Modal Examination of Associations with Safety Behaviors

Fears of negative (FNE) and positive (FPE) evaluation and safety behaviors feature prominently in cognitive-behavioral models of social anxiety. However, we have a poor understanding of their associations, particularly given evidence that they both vary in form and function. This study aimed to identify the factor structure of safety behaviors and explore their differential associations with FNE and FPE. We addressed these aims across samples that varied in developmental stage, informant, and assessment modality. We collected self-reported data from college students (n = 349; Mage = 19.42) and adolescent-parent dyads (n = 134; Mage_adolescents = 14.49, Mage_parents = 45.01); parents also completed an ecologically-valid evaluation task. We confirmed a two-factor structure of safety behaviors - avoidance and impression management – that fit the data well for college students, adolescents, and parents’ self-report, but not for parents’ report about adolescents. Associations between avoidance and impression management and FNE/FPE were significant within-informants but not between-informants. For parents, in-the-moment arousal following receipt of negative, but not positive, feedback was associated with avoidance and impression management. Findings have implications for integrated measurement of FNE, FPE, and safety behaviors, as well as treatments that target social anxiety through each of these domains.