Journal of

Experimental Psychopathology
JEP Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793
ISSN 2043-8087 / DOI:10.5127/jep.022211

Comparing Fear of Positive Evaluation to Fear of Negative

Evaluation in Predicting Anxiety from a Social Challenge

Michele M. Cartera, Tracy Sbroccob, Sarah Rileya, Frances E. Mitchella

a
American University
b
Uniformed Services University

Abstract
This study compared FNE and FPE scales in predicting anxious responding to a social challenge. 101
undergraduate participants completed a social manipulation requiring them to deliver a 3 minute
videotaped speech they believed would be rated by faculty judges. Participants then received bogus
positive, negative, or no feedback and were informed they were selected to present their speech directly
to the panel of judges. FNE was the strongest predictor of state anxiety following the initial speech task,
while FNE and FPE predicted somatic response to this task. Regardless of feedback type, FPE was a
significant predictor of anxiety during the second speech task. Results are consistent with an overall
cognitive model of social anxiety and suggest that FPE and FNE are distinct predictors of anxiety the
under specific conditions.
© Copyright 2012 Textrum Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: fear of positive evaluation, fear of negative evaluation, social anxiety, challenge procedures
Correspondence to: Michele Carter, Department of Psychology, 321 Asbury Bldg. Washington, DC 20016, USA.
Email: mcart@american.edu
1. Department of Psychology, 321 Asbury Bldg. Washington, DC 20016, USA
2. Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Uniformed Services University, 4301 Jones Bridge Road,
Bethesda, MD 20814.
Received 08-Aug-2011; received in revised form 06-Mar-2012; accepted 02-Apr-2012
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 783

Table of Contents
Introduction
Cognitive Model of Social Anxiety-Fear of Negative Evaluation
Fear of Positive Evaluation (FPE)
Method
Participants
Measures
Procedure
Results
Demographics
Manipulation Check
Predicting Anxious Response
Predicting anticipatory anxiety by feedback condition.
Discussion
References

Introduction
Social anxiety is characterized by the experience of anxiety resulting from exposure to a socially oriented
situation where one perceives they are being judged or evaluated (American Psychiatric Association,
2000). The social situations can be either performance based (e.g., giving a speech to an audience) or
interaction based (e.g., holding a casual conversation). The majority of the extant literature clearly points
to “fear of negative evaluation” as the proximal cause to the development of social anxiety (Clark &
Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997; Turk, Lerner, Heimberg, & Rapee, 2001). Recently, however,
“fear of performing well” has been introduced and examined as a core cognitive concept in social anxiety
disorder and perhaps social anxiety in general (e.g., Weeks, Heimberg, Rodebaugh & Norton, 2008).
This study evaluated fear of positive evaluation (FPE) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE) in predicting
anxiety in a social challenge paradigm.

Cognitive Model of Social Anxiety-Fear of Negative Evaluation

Cognitive models conceptualize social anxiety as a problem in cognitive processing (Clark & Wells,
1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). Socially anxious individuals are hypothesized to hold a strong core
belief that they will be negatively evaluated in social situations. This belief has been characterized as
‘fear of negative evaluation (FNE).’ This fear forms a cognitive bias of sorts that causes one to focus on
the possibility of others focusing on a perceived imperfection in either appearance or behavior (Clark &
Wells, 1995). Consequently, there is a tendency to search the environment for negative evaluation by
others (Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). Once a perceived threat is noticed, it typically generates anxiety
severe enough that it interferes with one’s actual performance (in the case of a socially anxious person
with performance deficits). In these cases the socially anxious person may actually exhibit problems in
their interactions (e.g., becoming so anxious that they actually stammer during conversations) that serve
to confirm their initial negative bias (Turk, Heimberg, & Magee, 2008). The consequence of this pattern is
the development of a negative feedback loop that increases the probability of concerns being realized.
The obvious key in this model is the overwhelming fear socially anxious people have of negative
evaluation.
There is ample research indicating that FNE is a prominent feature of social anxiety. For example, Leary,
Kowalski, and Campbell (1988) investigated the role of self-presentational concerns among anxious and
non-anxious participants. In one study, participants were asked to imagine how they would be rated
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 784

following a glance, a brief conversation, or a prolonged conversation. Regardless of condition, socially

anxious participants thought they would be more negatively evaluated than non-anxious participants.
Interestingly, in a follow-up study socially anxious participants thought the evaluator would judge others
just as negatively, while non-anxious participants thought they would be evaluated more positively than
other participants.
There have also been studies demonstrating that the negative cognitions commonly associated with
FNE are found among socially anxious participants. For example, Schulz, Alpers, and Hofmann (2008)
examined the impact of negative self-focused cognitions and found that negative evaluative statements
such as, “What I say will probably sound stupid” mediated the relationship between trait social anxiety
and state anxiety. Similarly, Makkar and Grisham (2011) evaluated factors predicting engaging in
negative self-focused cognitions following social situations. It was noted in this study that a negative self-
focused review was more likely following a public speech than a conversation and that negative self-
assumptions were a unique predictor of negative self-focused review. Such studies indicate a strong role
for negative cognitions (including negative evaluative cognitions) in the expression of anxious symptoms
in social situations.

Fear of Positive Evaluation (FPE)

While there is little doubt that fear of negative evaluation plays a major role in social anxiety, the
traditional cognitive conceptualization limiting the core of social anxiety to a fear of negative evaluation
has been challenged as being incomplete (e.g., Weeks, Heimberg, Rodebaugh, & Norton 2008). A
decade ago Gilbert (2001) suggested that a principal component of social anxiety may actually be a fear
of performing well. The concern over performing well and being positively evaluated may create the
belief that all future performances must equal or exceed recent positive performances. The new
heightened expectation of others created by performing positively then feeds directly into the socially
anxious individual’s core belief that they will not be able to live up to the standards of others. As such,
they may consequently fear any positive evaluation of their performance (Weeks et al., 2008). Empirical
evidence for this position was provided by Wallace and Alden (1995) who found that socially anxious
males who experienced a positive social interaction reported that others would expect more of them than
anxious men who experienced a negative social interaction. Similar results were found by Wallace and
Alden (1997). The tendency to expect future negative consequences following a positive social situation
may be heightened in the presence of others perceived to be in a socially dominant position (Weeks,
Jakatdar, & Heimberg, 2010). This particular component of FPE may be important in the context of the
current study given that students were required to deliver their speech to presumably socially dominant
others (i.e., professors).
Recent research has found evidence for a fear of positive evaluation among socially anxious
participants. Alden, Mellings, and Laposa (2004), for example, had socially anxious participants engage
in an interaction role play. Following the role play, each participant received either positive or negative
feedback regarding their performance and was asked to predict their performance in a subsequent role
play. Those receiving positive feedback experienced an increase in anxiety in the follow-up role play,
suggesting that positive feedback can increase anxiety among socially anxious participants. Similarly,
Alden, Taylor, Mellings and Laposa (2008) found evidence for a negative interpretation of positive social
feedback for socially anxious participants compared to non-anxious controls.
Weeks, Heimberg, Rodebaugh, and Norton (2008) further examined the role of fear of positive
evaluation in social anxiety. In this investigation they had participants write an open ended paragraph
that was to be rated by expert judges. All participants received positive feedback on their paragraphs. It
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 785

was found that discomfort was a mediator between FPE and perceived accuracy of feedback. It was also
noted that the FPES was correlated with discomfort and accuracy while fear of negative evaluation was
not related to either discomfort or accuracy.
Weeks and colleagues (2010) found additional support distinguishing fear of positive evaluation from
fear of negative evaluation. They further noted that both fear of positive and fear of negative evaluation
were related to social interaction anxiety and that each was less related to fear of success. It was
concluded that both constructs may be related to one’s desire to not receive feedback at all.
In their evaluation of the role of FNE in social interaction anxiety and depression, Wang Hsu, Chiu and
Liang (2011) administered measures of negative affect, positive affect, FNE, and FPE to a sample of
Taiwanese undergraduate students. The results indicated that the higher order factors of high negative
affectivity and low positive affect were vulnerability markers for both social anxiety and depression. They
also found evidence that FNE and FPE were specific lower order factors that were related to social
interaction anxiety and not to depression. Furthermore, they noted a small correlation between FNE and
FPE, suggesting an independent contribution of each.
Finally, Rodebaugh Weeks, Gordon, Langer and Heimberg (2011) examined the long-term relationship
between FPE, FNE, and measures of social interaction and social phobia. They specifically investigated
whether FPE and FNE existed as separate constructs over a three week period and across multiple
assessment points. They found that participants’ level of FPE, FNE, and social anxiety were all
determined by the underlying trait of each construct. It was further noted that while FPE may
occasionally operate as a delayed FNE, they found clear evidence that FPE is not always delayed FNE.
These latter studies directly compared FPE and FNE and found evidence that FNE and FPE are specific
to social anxiety (Wang et al., 2011) and that each is orthogonal to the other (Rodebaugh et al., 2011;
Wang et al., 2011).
Taken together, these studies indicate fear of positive evaluation is an important construct for social
anxiety and that the FPES is a strong measure of the construct. However, the predictive ability of the
FPES has not been fully explored. Specifically, no study to date has examined the ability of the FPES to
predict anxious response to a social challenge. Furthermore, the relationship between FPE and FNE is
currently difficult to discern. While empirical evidence suggests they are correlated but clearly distinct
constructs, it is possible they exist on a single continuum. A better understanding of FPE could aid in the
development of novel treatment strategies focusing directly on application of the concept.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative contribution of fear of positive and fear of negative
evaluation in predicting anxious response to a social challenge procedure. As previous research
indicates a role for fear of negative evaluation in social anxiety (Wang et al., 2011), we predicted that the
measure of FNE would be a strong predictor of anxiety in a speech challenge. Given recent evidence
that fear of positive evaluation is an important construct for social anxiety, we further predicted that the
FPES would account for variance in anxious responding above and beyond FNE. Previous work
suggests, however, that evidence of the impact of FPE likely requires activation from a positive social
situation (Alden et al., 2004; Gilbert, 2001; Wallace & Alden, 1995; 1997). As such, we included a bogus
feedback condition to more specifically examine the concept of FPE. Here we speculated that when
provided evidence of positive performance, the FPES would be a strong predictor of perceived
subsequent performance.
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 786

Method

Participants
Participants were 104 undergraduate students attending a mid-sized Mid-Atlantic university recruited for
a study on anxiety. Participants were excluded if they were currently receiving treatment for an anxiety
disorder since treatment (particularly cognitive behavioral) could decrease concerns about positive and
negative evaluation. Since a full diagnostic evaluation was not conducted, it is impossible to determine if
any of the participants met criteria for any anxiety disorder. Students received course credit for
participating. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board. All participants were provided
written informed consent. Three participants opted to not participate following consent procedures and
the final sample was 101 students (positive feedback n = 34; negative feedback n = 36; no feedback n =
31).

Measures
General Information Questionnaire inquires about basic demographic information (i.e., age, sex, year in
school and ethnicity) as well as questions regarding the participant’s health history and history with panic
and social anxiety.
Hyperventilation Questionnaire (HQ - Rapee, & Medoro, 1994). The HQ is a 33 item questionnaire,
which is designed to measure somatic, cognitive and affective concerns that are often reported during
challenge procedures. This measure has strong internal consistency for the Somatic subscale,
(Cronbach’s α = .92). This subscale was used to assess somatic symptoms pre- and post-experimental
manipulation. Sample items include “pounding heart,” “numbness in extremities,” “dizziness,” “hot or
flushed,” “feel like passing out,” and “lightheadedness.” Each item is rated from 0 (not at all) to 3
(strongly) for how intensely each symptom is experienced. Internal consistency for the somatic subscale
for this sample was Cronbach’s α = .81.
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory – State version (STAI- Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970; Knight,
Waal-Manning, & Spears, 1983). The STAI consists of 20 items designed to assess participant’s level of
anxiety ‘at this moment’ (current State). Internal consistency for the state scale was Cronbach’s α = .92
for this sample.
Fear of Positive Evaluation Scale (FPES – Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008). The FPES is a ten-
item scale rated from 0 to 9 and assesses the concern one may have over being evaluated positively.
The authors report that the FPES is correlated with general measures of trait anxiety while being
significantly less correlated with measures of worry and depression, indicating convergent and
discriminant validity. They additionally report that the FPES contributes unique variance in social
interaction anxiety beyond fear of negative evaluation. Fergus and colleagues (2009) offer support for
the strong psychometric properties of the FPES in a clinical population in finding the FPES has good
test-retest reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, and that the scale is factorially distinct from
fear of negative evaluation (Fergus, et al., 2009).
Consistent with the scoring recommendation of Weeks and colleagues (2008), the two reverse-worded
items were removed from the calculation of the total FPES score. Average score for a non-disordered
university population is reported to be 23 with an approximate standard deviation of 13. The internal
consistency of the FPES is good (α = .80) and all items load onto a single factor. Internal consistency for
the FPES was Cronbach’s α = .77 for this sample.
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 787

Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation (BFNE- Duke, Krishman, Faith, & Storch, 2006; Leary, 1983). The
BFNE is a 12-item questionnaire inquiring about the participant’s fear of evaluation by others. The BFNE
has high internal consistency among undergraduate college students, (Cronbach’s α = .91). The internal
consistency for the BFNE for this sample was (Cronbach’s α = .91).
Single-item measures. To evaluate participants’ anxiety a single item scale asking “how anxious are you
anticipating your speech” rated from 0 (not at all) to 7 (extremely) was administered. Since participants
had completed the STAI twice in a relatively short period of time we opted to administer a single item
measure of anxiety following the bogus feedback to guard against a possible response bias. Additionally,
participants were asked to rate their expected performance from 0 (will perform poorly) to 7 (will perform
very well) during the speech task. Finally, participants were asked to rate “how much you believed the
feedback you received regarding your performance to be true” from 0 (not at all) to 7 (completely).

Procedure
Following informed consent, participants were randomly assigned to one of the feedback conditions
(positive, negative, or no feedback). All were then administered a battery of questionnaires including the
STAI, BFNE, FPES, and HQ in random order. Following completion of the initial battery of
questionnaires, participants individually engaged in the speech challenge task.
For the speech task, participants were told that this phase of the study involved delivering a 3 minute
speech on any perceived negative aspect of their body they chose. They were further informed that their
speech would be videotaped and later rated by a panel of judges consisting of professors in the
psychology department. Similar to the procedures used by Carter, Sbrocco, and Ayati (2009),
participants were told the panel would rate their speech on organization of thought, vocal projection, and
ease of speaking ability, but not on the content of their speech. This was done to keep participants’ focus
on the performance aspect of the speech in an effort to enhance their evaluation concerns. Lastly, they
were informed that after the videotaped speech was viewed by the judges, they may be asked to deliver
the speech to the judges directly. Participants then stood in front of a wall facing a video camera and
delivered their impromptu speech. In the event participants ran out of things to say, they were reminded
of the time remaining and encouraged to continue. This procedure has previously been shown to
produce a significant increase in social anxiety (Carter et al., 2009).
Following completion of the challenge procedure, participants again completed the HQ and STAI with
instructions to indicate what they experienced during the social challenge task. The researcher then left
the room with the camera, under the pretense that they were going down the hall to show the video to
the faculty “judges.” In reality the researcher did not show the tape to any judges and erased the tape
immediately upon leaving the room. Following the 5 minute break, during which participants thought their
tape was being reviewed by the judges, participants completed the single item anxiety measure and
were then provided bogus positive, negative, or no feedback. In the positive feedback condition,
participants were told, “Compared to the average participant, you have been judged to have performed
excellently. As such, we are going to ask that you deliver your speech to the judges in the next few
minutes. You will have 1 minute to prepare.” After one minute, participants were again administered the
single item measures of anxiety and expected performance.
In the negative feedback condition, participants were told, “Compared to the average participant, you
have been judged to have performed below expectations. However, you were randomly selected to
deliver your speech again to two faculty judges in the next few minutes. You will have 1 minute to
prepare.” After one minute, participants were again administered the single item measures of anxiety
and performance.
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 788

In the ‘no feedback’ condition, participants were informed that they were one of those randomly selected
to present their tape to the judges. They were given no information about their performance on the first
task. Again, they were given 1 minute to prepare, and then administered the single item measures again.
Afterwards, participants were fully debriefed regarding deception in this portion of the study. They were
informed that the videotape was erased immediately when the experimenter left the room, and therefore
no one other than the experimenter heard their speech. And, they were told that the purpose of the
speech was simply to induce a specific type of anxiety. They were also informed that there were no
actual “judges.”

Results

Demographics
The sample can best be described as approximately 19 years of age, sophomores in college, and
primarily Caucasian (approximately 67%). The sample also scored within the range expected for a
college student sample on the BFNE (M = 35.80, SD = 10.46), FPES (M = 28.69, SD = 11.74), and STAI
(M = 40.84, SD = 10.86) as determined from scores reported in the development of each scale. A
Multivariate Analyses of Variance indicated no significant group differences on the BFNE, FPES, STAI,
or somatic sensations, F(8, 188) = .53, p = .82.

Manipulation Check
To assess the efficacy of the manipulations, repeated measures Analyses of Variance (ANOVA’s) were
conducted on the state anxiety scale. There was a significant increase in average state anxiety as
measured by the STAI pre speech (M = 40.84, SD = 10.86) to post speech(M = 51.87, SD = 12.16), F(1,
100) = 107.66, p < .001, and somatic symptoms pre speech (M = 6.28, SD = 5.90) to post speech (M =
9.30, SD = 8.24), F(1, 100) = 23.42, p < .001, indicating the manipulation successfully increased anxiety
and somatic symptoms.; It should be noted that the overall correlation between the BFNE and the FPES
was moderate, r = .49, p < .01, indicating the two scales are at least somewhat orthogonal to each other.

Predicting Anxious Response

It should be noted that to reduce the influence of pre-challenge on post challenge scores, all regressions
were conducted in a stepwise fashion with pre-speech scores entered on the first step of the equation.
The results for the regression are presented in Table 1. A regression to predict anxious responding to
the speech task indicated that pre-speech anxiety was a significant predictor of state anxiety. Entering
the BFNE and FPES on the second step indicated that the BFNE contributed additional variance to
anxiety scores beyond that predicted by pre-speech anxiety. The FPES was excluded from the equation
indicating that it did not predict anxious responding beyond what could be accounted for by pre-speech
anxiety and the BFNE. Also depicted in Table 1, the regression to predict somatic response indicated
that pre-speech somatic sensations was a significant predictor of somatic symptoms reported during the
speech task. When the BFNE and FPES were entered onto the next step, it was found that both
remained significant predictors of somatic responding to the speech challenge over and above pre-
speech somatic symptoms. This suggests that fear of negative and fear of positive evaluation can both
be used to predict somatic responding.
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 789

Table 1: Comparing predictors to the Social Challenge

STAI-state

Predictor: β t p

STAI-pre .41 4.69 < .001

BFNE .31 3.59 < .001

Somatic Sensations

β t p

Somatic-pre .47 6.43 < .001

BFNE .25 3.16 < .001
FPES .23 2.19 < .001
Note. STAI-State Trait Anxiety Inventory; BFNE-Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale; FPES-Fear of Positive Evaluation
Scale; β = Beta, t = t value, p = probability.

Predicting anticipatory anxiety by feedback condition.

Following the initial speech task, subjects were then divided into three feedback conditions: positive,
negative, and no-feedback. Participants in each feedback group (positive and negative) rated how
strongly they believed the feedback to be true from 0 (not at all) to 7 (completely). There was no
difference between the average rating (for the positive feedback group (M = 4.06, SD = 2.11) and for the
negative feedback group (M = 4.11, SD = 2.12), F(1, 69) = .01, p = .91, indicating that the feedback
groups were comparable and found the feedback to moderately believable.. Furthermore, there were no
group differences in participants’ average rating of their expected performance between the positive (M =
2.56, SD = 1.28), negative (M = 2.97, SD = 1.89), and no feedback (M = 2.87, SD = 1.38) conditions,
F(2, 100) = .78, p = .46. Therefore, neither feedback believability nor expected performance exerted an
influence on the findings.
A repeated measures ANOVA with group as the between subjects variable and time as the within
subjects variable was conducted on the single item anxiety rating pre- and post-feedback manipulation
was conducted to examine the change in anxiety resulting from being informed participants would be
delivering a second speech. There was a significant effect for time indicating that all groups experienced
a significant increase in anxiety, F(1, 98) = 48.74, p < .001. However, there was no significant group ×
time interaction, F(2, 98) = .56, p = .57, indicating comparable change between groups.
Next we conducted a regression to examine the ability of each independent variable to predict the single-
item anxiety rating of their anticipatory anxiety about making the speech for a second time in front of the
“judges.” For this analysis we entered pre-speech anxiety on the first step of the regression and found it
was a significant predictor of anxiety. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 2. We then
entered BFNE, FPES, and the interaction of Group and FPES (product of group and FPES) on the next
step of the regression. The interaction was included to test the hypothesis that the FPES would be a
strong predictor of anxiety for participants receiving positive feedback. Results indicated that the FPES
was a significant predictor of anxiety while the BFNE and the interaction between group and FPES were
excluded from the equation. This indicates that type of feedback did not differentially influence the ability
of the FPES to predict anxiety.
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 790

Table 2: Predicting Response by Following Feedback

Post Feedback

Predictor: β t p

Anxiety pre .60 8.13 < .001

FPES .22 3.01 < .001
Note. β = Beta, t = t value, p = probability.

Discussion
Fear of negative evaluation (FNE) is the key to the expression of anxiety according to the traditional
cognitive conceptualization of social anxiety. In this study we directly compared FNE to the construct of
fear of positive evaluation (FPE) as predictors of anxious responding to a social challenge. This
comparison is the first of this type and such studies are imperative to fully evaluate the utility of FPE as a
potential cognitive mechanism underlying social anxiety. The overall results were mixed. The data from
the initial speech task provided clear evidence that FNE was a strong predictor of state anxiety as
measured by the STAI. The BFNE scale predicted variance over and above that predicted by
participants’ pre-speech level of anxiety. Furthermore, FPE did not predict anxious response over and
above FNE. This is consistent with previous reports (Carter et al., 2009), and suggests that FNE
underlies typical social challenges and is a stronger predictor of anxiety than FPE. This conclusion,
however, is attenuated when predicting the physiological sensations of anxiety, which appear to be
predicted by both FPE and FNE. While this seems contrary to evidence that FNE accounts for more
variance in anxiety than FPE, it is possible that the arousal symptoms experienced by participants
reflects a general physiological response that cannot be readily distinguished from the cause of the
response. For example, increased heart rate is associated with both the experiences of fear and
happiness. Therefore, measurement of each would be correlated with increased heart rate, and
prediction of heart rate would be equally shared by the measurement of fear and happiness. This may be
the case for somatic symptoms in relationship to FPE and FNE.
A critique of the above finding that FNE is a stronger predictor of anxiety than FPE could be that
participants were under no threat of future performance and therefore had no reason to activate a fear of
future positive evaluation. We addressed this issue by successfully manipulating participants’
expectations about future evaluation. By providing bogus positive or negative feedback we directly
assessed the impact of expectations or anticipatory anxiety. We found that regardless of the type of
feedback (positive, negative, or none) received, participants asked to deliver a second speech
experienced a significant increase in anxiety. Importantly, there were no group differences in the level of
anxiety produced. Contrary to hypotheses, however, the ability of the FPES and BFNE to predict anxious
responding did not vary by type of feedback received. Specifically, we found that once pre-speech
anxiety was accounted for, only the FPES predicted self-reported anxiety during the second speech task.
This clearly indicates that the FPES is a unique predictor of anxiety over and above anticipatory anxiety
and adds some support to the utility of FPE as a construct for social anxiety. Apparently, asking
participants to deliver a second speech generates anxiety regardless of the previous evaluation of the
quality of the speech. The elevated anxiety was likely related to the expectation of not performing well
(as indicated by low expectancy of performance ratings) during the second speech. This finding is
consistent with that of Weeks and colleagues (2010) and suggests that participants may have been
concerned about their ability to maintain an overall impression that was positive. This is also consistent
with the work of Wallace and Alden (1995) who found that positive social interactions predict heightened
expectations from others. However, the specific component of FPE (increased self-consciousness, social
 Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, Volume 3 (2012), Issue 5, 782–793 791

reprisal, or not being able to live up to the standards of others) that is responsible for the observed
findings is impossible to discern from the present study.
Taken together, the results from this study indicate that for novel performances, FNE is the principle
construct associated with anxiety, but for performances that are repeated, FPE is primarily responsible
for increased anxiety. This finding is similar to that of Wang and colleagues (2011) and Rodebaugh and
colleagues (2011) who both found that FPE and FNE accounted for separate variance in social anxiety.
Our results argue in favor of a cognitive model that emphasizes fear of negative evaluation, and
simultaneously provides support for the role of FPE, albeit in a more limited capacity than considered by
previous researchers (e.g., Weeks et al., 2010). This might indicate, as suggested by Wang and
colleagues (2011), that both exist on separate continuums perhaps with FNE as a potential cause of
social anxiety and FPE as a moderator under certain circumstances. Clinically, this could lead one to
presume that focusing on FNE for novel or less rehearsed situations might be an effective strategy to
reduce anxiety. Data from our study also suggests that focusing on FPE might be an effective strategy
for well rehearsed situations since they are most likely to be associated with a concern of positive
evaluation.
Our findings may be limited by use of college students who may be inherently different from a clinical
sample. Additional limitations include the use of a relatively small sample that was unselected with
regard to social anxiety symptoms. Furthermore, we did not directly ask participants if they believed they
would be delivering their speech to an actual audience. However, they did moderately believe the bogus
feedback and we would therefore argue that is more important than whether they believed an audience
was actually going to evaluate them on their second speech. Those in the positive feedback condition
believed they did a good job on their speech but were still certain that they would perform poorly during a
second performance of their speech. In other words it would seem that positive evaluation was
successfully manipulated. Therefore, the results from this study provide additional evidence that FFPE
and FNE are functionally distinct and suggest that additional studies are required to further explore that
relationship between the two constructs. Future studies could evaluate the relationship between FPE
and FNE in performance compared to interaction situations. Additionally, it would be useful to conduct
studies that more directly evaluate the cognitive processes (perhaps through use of a Stroop task or an
implicit association task) that may underlie the relationship between social situations and FPE and FNE.
Nonetheless, it appears that each construct has the capability of being a very strong predictor of perhaps
different types of anxiety.

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