19-11-2012, 05:18 PM
Peer Perceptions of Social Skills in Socially Anxious and Nonanxious Adolescents
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Abstract
Previous studies using adult observers are inconsistent
with regard to social skills deficits in nonclinical
socially anxious youth. The present study investigated
whether same age peers perceive a lack of social skills in
the socially anxious. Twenty high and 20 low socially
anxious adolescents (13–17 years old) were recorded giving
a 5-min speech. Unfamiliar peer observers (12–17 years
old) viewed the speech samples and rated four social skills:
speech content, facial expressions, posture and body
movement, and way of speaking. Peer observers perceived
high socially anxious adolescents as significantly poorer
than low socially anxious adolescents on all four social
skills. Moreover, for all skills except facial expressions,
group differences could not be attributed to adolescents’
self-reported level of depression. We suggest that therapists
take the perceptions of same age peers into account when
assessing the social skills of socially anxious youth.
Social Skills Deficits in Socially Anxious Youth
The possibility of social skills deficits in socially anxious
youth has also been proposed by other authors as one of the
reasons for negative treatment by peers (Greco and Morris
2005; Spence et al. 1999). However, the literature does not
consistently show poorer social skills in socially anxious
youth, as rated by adult observers. Whereas a few studies
found significant skills differences between socially anxious
and nonanxious youth on measures like performance
effectiveness or social skillfulness (Alfano et al. 2006;
Alfano et al. 2008; Beidel et al. 1999; Beidel et al. 2007),
others did not (Cartwright-Hatton et al. 2005; Erath et al.
2007). Finding skills deficits may depend on the sample
employed. In general, studies that found skills deficits used
clinical samples of social phobic youth while studies that
did not find deficits used high socially anxious youth
derived from a normal population. Nevertheless, as shown
in the studies by Inderbitzen-Nolan et al. (2007) and
Morgan and Banerjee (2006) skills deficits are not limited
to clinical populations. Thus, it is possible that inconsistent
findings are specific to nonclinical samples of socially
anxious youth. In these samples, social skills deficits might
be less severe than in clinical groups and therefore more
difficult to perceive by adults.
The Present Study
In short, it is possible that poor social skills as perceived by
peers are the reason that socially anxious youth are negatively
treated by these peers. In turn, negative treatment makes
socially anxious youth feel that their social performance is
poor, resulting in low self-evaluations. As the first step in this
model—whether peers perceive the social skills of socially
anxious youth as poor—has never been investigated, the
present study was designed to do just this.
A group of nonreferred adolescents with high selfreported
levels of social anxiety and a group with lower
levels (the control group) took part in the Leiden Public
Speaking Task (Leiden-PST; Westenberg et al. in press).
Public speaking performances were recorded and shown to
peer observers at a later date. We chose to study adolescents
because this period is coupled, on the one hand, with an
increasing importance of peer relationships (as discussed
earlier), and on the other hand, with an increase in fear of
negative evaluation (Weems and Costa 2005; Westenberg et
al. 2007) and an early to mid-teen onset of social phobia
(Rapee and Spence 2004). In accordance with Verduin and
Kendall (2008) and to avoid the influence of social
reputation on peer perceptions (Hymel et al. 1990), we
specifically chose unfamiliar peer observers, similar in age.
We included a minimum of 20 peer observers per
adolescent so that we could measure an average reaction
from a group, closely mirroring a school classroom
situation. This type of situation was considered to be more
relevant to the daily lives of anxious and nonanxious youth
than the more standard situation in which objective ratings
from a few adult observers are collected. Peer observers
rated four midi-level social skills important for this
performance situation: speech content, facial expressions,
posture and body movement, and way of speaking (Monti
et al. 1984; Segrin 2000).
Results
Relationships Among Midi-Level Social Skills
Correlation analyses among the four skills revealed significant
positive intercorrelations (all r’s between .87 and .93
and p’s<.001). Although Monti et al. (1984) also found
high intercorrelations in student and patient samples, with
r’s between .55 and .81, the present correlations are in a
higher range. This may be explained by the present study’s
larger number of observers (at least 20) compared with
Monti et al.’s (1984) study. Using a greater number of
observers increases the reliability of the mean skill ratings
over observers and therefore enhances the strength of
correlations among the skills. At the same time, the strong
intercorrelations suggest that there is considerable overlap
among the four skills.