The Role of Fear of Positive Evaluation in Social Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is often associated with fear of negative evaluation (FNE). More recently, fear of positive evaluation (FPE) has increasingly been recognized as a fear domain of SAD in which individuals are sensitive to positive appraisal and find social competition and conflict threatening. The relationships between FNE, FPE, and social anxiety symptoms were systematically reviewed and metaanalyzed, with 147 studies eligible for inclusion. It was found that considering both FNE and FPE together accounted for up to 9% more of additional variance in social anxiety symptoms than FNE alone, with large effect sizes between the means of FPE and FNE. It is recommended that research, ..