Abstract
Social anxiety and eating disorders are highly comorbid, which suggests there are shared vulnerabilities that underlie the development of these disorders. Two proposed vulnerabilities are fear of negative evaluation and social appearance anxiety (i.e., fear of negative evaluation regarding one’s appearance). In the current experimental study (N = 160 women), we measured these fears (a) through a manipulation comparing fear conditions, (b) with trait fears, and (c) with state fears. Results indicated that participants assigned to the fear of negative evaluation condition increased food consumption, whereas those assigned to the social appearance anxiety condition and high in trait social appearance anxiety experienced the highest amounts of body dissatisfaction. Participants in the fear of negative evaluation and social appearance anxiety conditions experienced elevated social anxiety. These results support the idea that negative-evaluation fears are shared vulnerabilities for eating and social anxiety disorders, but that the way these variables exert their effects may lead to disorder-specific behaviors.
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