Personal value, self-efficacy, and social acceptability of a social behavior as correlates of behavioral action in social anxiety.

Introduction: Current therapies for social anxiety disorder emphasize taking behavioral action; active engagement of a behavior despite any present fear or anxiety that is associated with the behavior, through use of exposures. However, less is known about the mechanisms of behavioral action. The present study aimed to examine personal value, self-efficacy, and the perceived social acceptability of a social behavior as correlates of behavioral action in a high social anxiety sample.

Method: The present study utilized vignettes and self-report measures to examine self-efficacy, personal value, and the social acceptability of a social behavior as correlates of behavioral action in a high social anxiety sample (N = 92).

Results: The findings indicated that self-efficacy, but not personal value or social acceptability, was significantly associated with social anxiety. Additionally, with all variables included in the multiple regression model, social anxiety was significantly associated with behavioral action, while personal value and self-efficacy were associated with behavioral action over and above social anxiety.

Discussion: The results highlight the potential for self-efficacy and personal value as target mechanisms for increasing engagement with exposures and behavioral experiments in treatments for social anxiety.