Self-esteem and fear of negative evaluation as mediators between family socioeconomic status and social anxiety in Chinese emerging adults

Abstract

Aims:

The social causation hypothesis suggests that the stress in connection with a depressing social position results in the development of mental disorders. This study examines the psychological mechanisms underlying the link between family socioeconomic status (SES) and social anxiety in Chinese emerging adults.

Methods:

A self-administered questionnaire was given to a representative sample (N = 717) of undergraduate students (17–23 years old) at three universities in China. Correlational and structural equation modeling analyses were employed to test the hypothesized three-path effect of self-esteem and fear of negative evaluation (FNE) as mediators between family SES and social anxiety.

Results:

Findings suggest the following: (1) the emerging adults belonging to families with low SES are at an increased risk of social anxiety, and (2) lower family SES caused lower self-esteem, which, in turn, serves to enhance the levels of FNE, thereby increasing social anxiety.

Conclusion:

In addressing the prevention and treatment of social anxiety, we conclude that preventive efforts toward improving self-esteem may help reduce social anxiety in individuals with low family SES.

Keywords

Family socioeconomic status social anxiety self-esteem fear of negative evaluation emerging adults

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Acarturk

Smit

de Graaf

van Straten

ten Have

Cuijpers

(2009). Incidence of social phobia and identification of its risk indicators: A model for prevention. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 119, 62–70.

Anderson

J. C.

Gerbing

D. W.

(1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 411–423.

Bowins

Shugar

(1998). Delusions and self-esteem. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 43, 154–158.

Bradley

R. H.

Corwyn

R. F.

(2002). Socioeconomic status and child development. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 371–399.

Chen

(2002). Fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety in middle school students. Chinese Mental Health Journal, 16, 855–857.

Clark

D. M.

Wells

(1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In Heimberg

R. G.

Liebowitz

Hope

Scheier

(Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69–93). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Currie

Zanotti

Morgan

Currie

de Looze

Roberts

… Barnekow

(2012). Social determinants of health and well-being among young people. Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study: International report from the 2009/2010 survey (Health Policy for Children and Adolescents, Vol. 6). Copenhagen, Denmark: WHO Regional Office for Europe.

de Hullu

de Jong

P. J.

Sportel

B. E.

Nauta

M. H.

(2011). Threat-related automatic associations in socially anxious adolescents. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 49, 518–522.

de Jong

P. J.

(2002). Implicit self-esteem and social anxiety: Differential self-favouring effects in high and low anxious individuals. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40, 501–508.

10.

Demir

Karacetin

Eralp Demir

Uysal

(2013). Prevalence and some psychosocial characteristics of social anxiety disorder in an urban population of Turkish children and adolescents. European Psychiatry, 28, 64–69.

11.

Dohrenwend

B. P.

Dohrenwend

B. S.

(1969). Social status and psychological disorder: A causal inquiry. New York, NY: Wiley-Interscience.

12.

Dohrenwend

B. P.

Levav

Shrout

P. E.

Schwartz

Naveh

Link

B. G.

… Stueve

(1992). Socioeconomic status and psychiatric disorders: The causation-selection issue. Science, 255, 946–952.

13.

Eaton

W. W.

(1980). A formal theory of selection for schizophrenia. American Journal of Sociology, 86, 149–158.

14.

Ennis

N. E.

Hobfoll

S. E.

Schröder

K. E.

(2000). Money doesn’t talk, it swears: How economic stress and resistance resources impact inner-city women’s depressive mood. American Journal of Community Psychology, 28, 149–173.

15.

Fan

A. P.

Eaton

W. W.

(2001). Longitudinal study assessing the joint effects of socio-economic status and birth risks on adult emotional and nervous conditions. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 178(Suppl. 40), s78–s83.

16.

Fehm

Pelissolo

Furmark

Wittchen

H. U.

(2005). Size and burden of social phobia in Europe. European Neuropsychopharmacology, 15, 453–462.

17.

Fryers

Melzer

Jenkins

(2003). Social inequalities and the common mental disorders. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 38, 229–237.

18.

Glashouwer

K. A.

Vroling

M. S.

de Jong

P. J.

Lange

W. G.

de Keijser

(2013). Low implicit self-esteem and dysfunctional automatic associations in social anxiety disorder. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 44, 262–270.

19.

Hayes

A. F.

(2009). Beyond Baron and Kenny: Statistical mediation analysis in the new millennium. Communication Monographs, 76, 408–420.

20.

Bentler

P. M.

(1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6, 1–55.

21.

James

S. L.

Amato

P. R.

(2013). Self-esteem and the reproduction of social class. Social Science Quarterly, 94, 933–955.

22.

(1993). The self-esteem scale, SES. Chinese Mental Health Journal, 7(Suppl.), 251–252.

23.

Jones

W. H.

Briggs

S. R.

Smith

T. G.

(1986). Shyness: Conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 629–639.

24.

Kessler

R. C.

Chiu

W. T.

Demler

Merikangas

K. R.

Walters

E. E.

(2005). Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of 12-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 617–627.

25.

Kline

R. B.

(2011). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

26.

Kocovski

N. L.

Endler

N. S.

(2000). Social anxiety, self-regulation, and fear of negative evaluation. European Journal of Personality, 14, 347–358.

27.

Leary

M. R.

(1983). A brief version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9, 371–375.

28.

Leary

M. R.

Kowalski

R. M.

(1997). Social anxiety. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

29.

(2005). Prestige stratification in the contemporary Chinese Society: Occupation prestige and social economic status index measurement. Sociological Studies, 2, 74–102.

30.

Lund

Breen

Flisher

A. J.

Kakuma

Corrigall

Joska

J. A.

… Patel

(2010). Poverty and common mental disorders in low and middle income countries: A systematic review. Social Science & Medicine, 71, 517–528.

31.

Marmot

Bell

(2012). Fair society, healthy lives. Public Health, 126, S4–S10.

32.

Mattick

R. P.

Clarke

J. C.

(1998). Development and validation of measures of social phobia scrutiny fear and social interaction anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 455–470.

33.

Mayhew

K. P.

Lempers

J. D.

(1998). The relation among financial strain, parenting, parent self-esteem, and adolescent self-esteem. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 18, 145–172.

34.

Memik

N. C.

Sismanlar

S. G.

Yildiz

Karakaya

Isik

Agaoglu

(2010). Social anxiety level in Turkish adolescents. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 19, 765–772.

35.

OECD. (2012). PISA 2009 technical report. PISA, OECD Publishing. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264167872-en

36.

Patel

Knapp

Henderson

Baldwin

(2002). The economic consequences of social phobia. Journal of Affective Disorders, 68, 221–233.

37.

Qiu

(2008). Hierarchical characteristic predictor model of social interaction anxiety and depression (Master’s thesis). National Chengchi University, Taiwan, China.

38.

Rapee

R. M.

Heimberg

R. G.

(1997). A cognitive-behavioral model of anxiety in social phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 741–756.

39.

Rapee

R. M.

Spence

S. H.

(2004). The etiology of social phobia: Empirical evidence and an initial model. Clinical Psychology Review, 24, 737–767.

40.

Reiss

(2013). Socioeconomic inequalities and mental health problems in children and adolescents: A systematic review. Social Science & Medicine, 90, 24–31.

41.

Romm

K. L.

Melle

Thoresen

Andreassen

O. A.

Rossberg

J. I.

(2012). Severe social anxiety in early psychosis is associated with poor premorbid functioning, depression, and reduced quality of life. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 53, 434–440.

42.

Rosella

J. D.

Albrecht

S. A.

(1993). Toward an understanding of the health status of black adolescents: An application of the stress-coping framework. Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, 16, 193–205.

43.

Rosenberg

(1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

44.

Rosenberg

Schooler

Schoenbach

Rosenberg

(1995). Global self-esteem and specific self-esteem: Different concepts, different outcomes. American Sociological Review, 60, 141–156.

45.

Safren

S. A.

Heimberg

R. G.

Brown

E. J.

Holle

(1996). Quality of life in social phobia. Depression and Anxiety, 4, 126–133.

46.

Santiago

C. D.

Wadsworth

M. E.

Stump

(2011). Socioeconomic status, neighborhood disadvantage, and poverty-related stress: Prospective effects on psychological syndromes among diverse low-income families. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32, 218–230.

47.

Schneier

F. R.

Heckelman

L. R.

Garfinkel

Campeas

Fallon

B. A.

Gitow

… Liebowitz

M. R.

(1994). Functional impairment in social phobia. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 55, 322–331.

48.

Schneier

F. R.

Johnson

Hornig

C. D.

Liebowitz

M. R.

Weissman

M. M.

(1992). Social phobia: Comorbidity and morbidity in an epidemiologic sample. Archives of General Psychiatry, 49, 282–288.

49.

Sönmez

Hagen

Andreassen

O. A.

Romm

K. L.

Grande

Jensen

L. H.

… Røssberg

J. I.

(2014). Cognitive behavior therapy in first-episode psychosis with a focus on depression, anxiety, and self-esteem. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 21, 43–54.

50.

Sowislo

J. F.

Orth

(2013). Does low self-esteem predict depression and anxiety? A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 213–240.

51.

Stein

M. B.

Kean

Y. M.

(2000). Disability and quality of life in social phobia: Epidemiologic findings. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 1606–1613.

52.

Taylor

A. B.

MacKinnon

D. P.

Tein

J.-Y.

(2008). Tests of the three-path mediated effect. Organizational Research Methods, 11, 241–269.

53.

Twenge

J. M.

Campbell

W. K.

(2002). Self-esteem and socioeconomic status: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6, 59–71.

54.

van Tuijl

L. A.

de Jong

P. J.

Sportel

B. E.

de Hullu

Nauta

M. H.

(2014). Implicit and explicit self-esteem and their reciprocal relationship with symptoms of depression and social anxiety: A longitudinal study in adolescents. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 45, 113–121.

55.

Wadsworth

M. E.

Santiago

C. D.

(2008). Risk and resiliency processes in ethnically diverse families in poverty. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 399–410.

56.

Weeks

J. W.

Heimberg

R. G.

Rodebaugh

T. L.

(2008). The fear of Positive Evaluation Scale: Assessing a proposed cognitive component of social anxiety. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22, 44–55.

57.

Wittchen

H.-U.

Fuetsch

Sonntag

Müller

Liebowitz

(2000). Disability and quality of life in pure and comorbid social phobia: Findings from a controlled study. European Psychiatry, 15, 46–58.

58.

Schneier

Heimberg

R. G.

Princisvalle

Liebowitz

M. R.

Wang

Blanco

(2012). Gender differences in social anxiety disorder: Results from the national epidemiologic sample on alcohol and related conditions. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26, 12–19.