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Results of this study suggest that the self-report version of the LSAS compares well to the clinician-administered version and may be validly employed in the assessment of social anxiety disorder.

The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (BFNE; M. R. Leary, 1983a) is often used to assess fear of negative evaluation, the core feature of social anxiety disorder. However, few studies have examined its psychometric properties in large samples of socially anxious patients. Although the BFNE yields a single total score, confirmatory factor analysis indicated a 2-factor solution to be more appropriate, with the 1st factor consisting of all straightforwardly worded items (BFNE-S) and the 2nd of all reverse-scored items (BFNE-R). Support was obtained for the convergent and discriminant validity of the BFNE and BFNE-S, but not the BFNE-R. These results suggest that standard scoring of the BFNE may not be optimal for patients with social anxiety disorder.

From an emotion regulation framework, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) can be conceptualized as a syndrome involving heightened intensity of subjective emotional experience, poor understanding of emotion, negative reactivity to emotional experience, and the use of maladaptive emotion management strategies (including overreliance on cognitive control strategies such as worry). The current study sought to replicate previous findings of emotion dysregulation among individuals with GAD and delineate which aspects of emotion dysregulation are specific to GAD or common to GAD and another mental disorder (social anxiety disorder). Individuals with GAD reported greater emotion intensity and fear of the experience of depression than persons with social anxiety disorder and nonanxious control participants. Individuals with social anxiety disorder indicated being less expressive of positive emotions, paying less attention to their emotions, and having more difficulty describing their emotions than either persons with GAD or controls. Measures of emotion differentiated GAD, social anxiety disorder, and normal control groups with good accuracy in a discriminant function analysis. Findings are discussed in light of theoretical and treatment implications for both disorders.

The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS) was created to measure anxiety about being negatively evaluated by others because of one's overall appearance, including body shape. This study examined the psychometric properties of the SAAS in three large samples of undergraduate students (respective ns = 512, 853, and 541). The SAAS demonstrated a unifactorial structure with high test-retest reliability and internal consistency. The SAAS was positively associated with measures of social anxiety. The SAAS was also related to greater disparity between perceived, actual, and ideal physical attributes, beliefs that one's appearance is inherently flawed and socially unacceptable and that being unattractive is socially deleterious, feelings of unattractiveness, emphasis on appearance and its maintenance, and a preoccupation with being overweight. It was a unique predictor of social anxiety above and beyond negative body image indicators. Findings suggest that the SAAS is a psychometrically valid measure of social anxiety regarding one's overall appearance.

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