title: Effects of gender role self-discrepancies and self-perceived attractiveness on social anxiety for women across social situations.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Psychosocial factors, such as gender role norms, may impact how social anxiety disorder (SAD) is experienced and expressed in different social contexts for women. However to date, these factors have not been examined via experimental methodology.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a cross-sectional, quasi-experimental controlled study.
  
  
  METHODS
  The current study included 48 highly socially anxious (HSA) women (70.9% meeting criteria for SAD) and examined the relationships among psychosocial factors (i.e. gender role self-discrepancies and self-perceived physical attractiveness), self-perceived social performance, and state anxiety, across two in vivo social tasks (i.e. conversation and opinion speech).
  
  
  RESULTS
  On average, participants reported belief that they ought to be less feminine for the speech task and more masculine for both the conversation and speech tasks. Also, for the conversation task, only lower self-rated attractiveness predicted poorer self-perceived performance and greater post-task state anxiety, above gender role self-discrepancies and confederate gender. For the speech task, only greater self-discrepancy in prototypical masculine traits predicted poorer performance ratings, and it was related to greater state anxiety in anticipation of the task.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For HSA women, psychosocial factors may play different roles in social anxiety across social contexts.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Ohio University , Athens , OH , USA.
authors.forename: Ashley N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Howell
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Ohio University , Athens , OH , USA.|b Department of Psychology , Nebraska Medicine , Omaha , NE , USA.
authors.forename: Justin W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Weeks
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001504:Beauty; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: Social anxiety; attractiveness; gender roles; performance; social context; women