Social anxiety as an early warning system: a refinement and extension of the self-presentation model of social anxiety
This chapter extends the self-presentational theory of social anxiety which explains people’s nervousness in social encounters as due to their concerns about other people’s perceptions of them. Our view is that self-presentational concerns result in social anxiety primarily when people’s concerns about others’ impressions of them have real or imagined negative implications for their relational value—the degree to which a person regards his or her relationship with another individual as valuable or important. Thus, people have evolved a sociometer, an unconscious system that continuously monitors the degree to which they are being accepted and valued versus rejected and devalued by other people. When the sociometer detects relational devaluation, feelings of social anxiety are evoked. Implications for social behavior and treatment are discussed.
