The present study is based on self presentational model of social anxiety and exams the relationship of relatively new variables, fear of positive evaluation and interpretation bias of positive event. Accordingly, this study predicts that fear of positive evaluation aroused from the large difference between self-presentational motivation and expectation makes it difficult to fit in accepting positive events and leads to social anxiety. For this study’s purpose, it is verified that the double mediating effect of Fear of Positive Evaluation and Interpretation Bias of Positive Event between the difference of self-presentational motivation and self-presentational expectancies and social anxiety.
Participants were 399 university students and completed questionnaires for Short Form of the Korean Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (K-SIAS) and the Korean Social Phobia Scale (K-SPS), Self-Presentational Motivational Scale(SPMS), Self-Presentational Expectancies Scale(SPES), Korean Version of Fear of Positive Evaluation Scale(K-FPES) and Interpretation of Positive Event Scale(IPES). The SPSS 21.0 and the PROCESS macro were used in this study for analysis program. Pearson’s correlation analysis and bootstrapping method were used to analyze the data from participants.
As expected, results indicated that fear of positive evaluation and interpretation bias of positive event mediated the relationship between the difference of self-presentational motivation and self-presentational expectancies and social anxiety. In addition, fear of positive evaluation(FPE) and interpretation bias of positive event(IPE) had partial double mediating effect between the difference of self-presentational motivation and self-presentational expectancies and social anxiety.
Based on the result of this study, the implications and limitations of present study were discussed with the suggestions for the further study.