IMPACT OF SELF CONCEPT, BODY DISSATISFACTION AND GENDER ON STUDENTS FEAR OF NEGATIVE EVALUATION
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
Watson and Friend (1969) defined fear of negative evaluation as apprehension about
others’ evaluation, distress over their negative evaluation, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively. Carleton et al, (2006) defined fear of negative evaluation as the apprehension and distress arising from concern about being judged despairingly or hostilely by others.
Basically people with a high degree of fear of negative evaluation (which can be measured with Fear of Negative Evaluation scale developed by Watson and friend) are overly concerned with how they are judged or perceived by other people. They tend to imagine that they are being perceived in negative ways and they are often inhibited in their behaviour as a result.
This people are also more responsive to situational factors, conformity, pre-social
behavior e.t.c. It may also be seen in every social evaluating situation including testing, being on a date, talking to one’s superior, being interviewed for a job, or giving a speech (Watson and friend, 1969).Fear of negative evaluation is related to specific personality dimensions, such as
anxiousness, submissiveness, and social avoidance. Several cognitive models, as well as
previous research, support the notion that social anxiety is derived in part, from fear of perceived
negative evaluation(Clark & Wells 1995; Rapee and Heimbeig, 1997). People with social anxiety
demonstrate a variety of behaviours to avoid negative evaluation (Well et al, 1995) and have
attentional biases for detecting social-evaluative threats (Asmundson & Stein, 1994; Heinrichs &
Hofmann, 2001; Vassilopoloulos, 2005); however this sensitivity to social threats is believed to
be based on implicit and automatic response determined by stimulus relevance (Philippot and
Pouilliez, 2005).Socially anxious people have lower level of confidence in their perceived social
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skills (it has also been associated with increased shyness (Miller, 1995), the development of
eating disorders (Gilbert and mayer, 2005), and lower self-esteem (kocovski and Endler, 2002).
Tozzi,F.,Aggen,S.,Neal,B.,Anderson,C.,Mazzeo,S.,Neal,M,.(2004) made a connection
between fear of negative evaluation and perfectionism, suggesting that a fear of making mistake
is one of the core features of perfectionism. Concern over mistake can be viewed as a form of
negative evaluation. Succinctly put, mistakes are synonymous with failure and disapproval.
Social anxiety is, in part response to perceived negative evaluation by others whereas Fear of
Negative Evaluation is related to dread of being evaluated despairingly when participating in a
social situation. Social anxiety is purely an emotional reaction to this type of social phobia.
When patients with social phobia evaluate their relationship, they are extremely fearful of
negative evaluation and express high degree of FNE. FNE has been suggested to have some
genetic components as are other personality characteristics (trait anxiousness, submissiveness
and social avoidance) Segrin, (2001).
As a latent construct, fear of negative evaluation is believed to promote the development and
expression of more general fears, anxiety and psychopathologies (Reiss and McNally, 1985).
This latent fear is partially heritable; ((Stein, Jang, & Livesley, 2002). Given the necessity for
positive, successful social interaction, particularly for persons in fear of therapy (Alden &
Taylor, 2004; Segrin, 2001). Increased understanding of effect of fear of negative evaluation and its correlates is crucial.
Self-concept is another important variable that we must talk about as it contributes a lot
in determining whether a person would develop the fear of being negatively evaluated by people.
The self-concept is a general term used to refer to how someone thinks about or perceives
himself.The self-concept can be defined as an organised knowledge structure or cognitive
