Convergent, incremental, and criterion ‐related validity of multi‐informant assessments of adolescents' fears of negative and positive evaluation

Adolescents who experience social anxiety tend to hold fears about negative evaluations (e.g., taunting) and may also hold fears about positive evaluations (e.g., praise from a teacher). The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation (BFNE) scale and Fear of Positive Evaluation Scale (FPES) are 2 widely used measures of adults' evaluative concerns. Yet we know little about their psychometric properties when assessing adolescents. In a mixed clinical/community sample of 96 adolescents (66.7% female; M = 14.50 years, SD = 0.50; 63.3% African American), we examined both self‐report and parent report versions of the BFNE and FPES. Adolescents and parents also provided reports about adolescents on survey measures of social anxiety and depressive symptoms. Adolescents participated in multiple social interactions in which they self‐reported their state arousal before and during the tasks. Adolescent and parent BFNE and FPES reports distinguished adolescents who displayed elevated social anxiety from those who did not. Both informants' reports related to survey measures of adolescent social anxiety, when accounting for domains that commonly co‐occur with social anxiety (i.e., depressive symptoms). Further, both the BFNE and FPES displayed incremental validity in relation to survey measures of adolescent social anxiety, relative to each other. However, only adolescents' BFNE and FPES reports predicted adolescents' self‐reported arousal within social interactions, and only adolesce...
Source: Clinical Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: ASSESSMENT Source Type: research