The association of self and other directed social anxiety with intolerance of uncertainty and shame -

Abstract

There is an increased recognition in the social anxiety literature of the existence of both self-directed social anxiety, which involves fears of embarrassing the self, and other-directed social anxiety, which involves fears of embarrassing and offending others, in different cultures. Despite this increased recognition, the literature has focused mostly on self-directed social anxiety and its correlates and much less on other-directed social anxiety and its correlates. In the present study, correlates that have been found to be theoretically relevant to both self and other directed social anxiety, specifically, anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty and shame were examined. A total of 300 Lebanese students of the American University of Beirut completed Arabic versions of the social anxiety questionnaire for adults , the other directed social anxiety scale, the anxiety sensitivity index 3, the intolerance of uncertainty scale short form, the self shame scale and the other shame scale. Intolerance of uncertainty and self shame were significant predictors of self-directed social anxiety above and beyond anxiety sensitivity, whereas other shame but not intolerance of uncertainty, was a significant predictor of other-directed social anxiety when controlling for anxiety sensitivity. The implications of the findings and the limitations of the study are discussed.