Social Anxiety and Self-Evaluation of Interpersonal Performance

High and low socially anxious men participated in two brief conversations with female confederates. Each subject rated his own and other conversations on social skill, anxiety, and female's response. Judges made identical ratings. It was hypothesized that, compared with low-anxious subjects, the high-anxious subjects would underestimate positive aspects of their performance (social skill and favorability of female response) and overestimate negative aspects (social anxiety). Data for the ratings of social skill supported this hypothesis, while the data for the ratings of social anxiety were in the predicted direction. Results for the ratings of the female's response did not support the hypothesis. The results supported the overly negative self-evaluations of the high-anxious group, while the self-evaluations of the low-anxious group were more positive and more consistent with the judges' evaluations. The discussion emphasized the potential role of self-evaluation as a mediator of social anxiety, independent of actual level of social skill.