Project Topic:
IMPACT OF SELF CONCEPT, BODY DISSATISFACTION AND GENDER ON STUDENT’S FEAR OF NEGATIVE EVALUATION
CHAPTER ONEIntroductionWatson and Friend (1969) defined fear of negative evaluation as apprehension aboutothers’ evaluation, distress over their negative evaluation, and the expectation that others wouldevaluate oneself negatively. Carleton et al, (2006) defined fear of negative evaluation as theapprehension and distress arising from concern about being judged despairingly or hostilely byothers.Basically people with a high degree of fear of negative evaluation (which can be measured withFear of Negative Evaluation scale developed by Watson and friend) are overly concerned withhow they are judged or perceived by other people. They tend to imagine that they are beingperceived in negative ways and they are often inhibited in their behaviour as a result.This people are also more responsive to situational factors, conformity, pre-socialbehavior e.t.c. It may also be seen in every social evaluating situation including testing, being ona date, talking to one’s superior, being interviewed for a job, or giving a speech (Watson andfriend, 1969).Fear of negative evaluation is related to specific personality dimensions, such asanxiousness, submissiveness, and social avoidance. Several cognitive models, as well asprevious research, support the notion that social anxiety is derived in part, from fear of perceivednegative evaluation(Clark & Wells 1995; Rapee and Heimbeig, 1997). People with social anxietydemonstrate a variety of behaviours to avoid negative evaluation (Well et al, 1995) and haveattentional biases for detecting social-evaluative threats (Asmundson & Stein, 1994; Heinrichs &Hofmann, 2001; Vassilopoloulos, 2005); however this sensitivity to social threats is believed tobe based on implicit and automatic response determined by stimulus relevance (Philippot andPouilliez, 2005).Socially anxious people have lower level of confidence in their perceived social2skills (it has also been associated with increased shyness (Miller, 1995), the development ofeating disorders (Gilbert and mayer, 2005), and lower self-esteem (kocovski and Endler, 2002).Tozzi,F.,Aggen,S.,Neal,B.,Anderson,C.,Mazzeo,S.,Neal,M,.(2004) made a connectionbetween fear of negative evaluation and perfectionism, suggesting that a fear of making mistakeis one of the core features of perfectionism. Concern over mistake can be viewed as a form ofnegative evaluation. Succinctly put, mistakes are synonymous with failure and disapproval.Social anxiety is, in part response to perceived negative evaluation by others whereas Fear ofNegative Evaluation is related to dread of being evaluated despairingly when participating in asocial situation. Social anxiety is purely an emotional reaction to this type of social phobia.When patients with social phobia evaluate their relationship, they are extremely fearful ofnegative evaluation and express high degree of FNE. FNE has been suggested to have somegenetic components as are other personality characteristics (trait anxiousness, submissivenessand social avoidance) Segrin, (2001).As a latent construct, fear of negative evaluation is believed to promote the development andexpression of more general fears, anxiety and psychopathologies (Reiss and McNally, 1985).This latent fear is partially heritable; ((Stein, Jang, & Livesley, 2002). Given the necessity forpositive, successful social interaction, particularly for persons in fear of therapy (Alden &Taylor, 2004; Segrin, 2001). Increased understanding of effect of fear of negative evaluation andits correlates is crucial.Self-concept is another important variable that we must talk about as it contributes a lotin determining whether a person would develop the fear of being negatively evaluated by people.The self-concept is a general term used to refer to how someone thinks about or perceiveshimself.The self-concept can be defined as an organised knowledge structure or cognitive3schema that contains all known information about the self, including past experiences, currentknowledge, feelings, beliefs and self-evaluations (Markus, 1977). While the self-concept wasonce conceptualised as a stable, generalised view of the self, it is now viewed as a dynamic andmultifaceted structure, which influences areas as diverse as self-regulation, goal setting,information processing, affect regulation, motivation, social perception, situation and partnerchoice, interaction strategies, and reactions to feedback (Markus &Wurf, 1987). This dynamicconceptualisation allowed for the observation that an individual’s self-concept could alter basedon their currently accessible thoughts, attitudes and beliefs, which may be influenced by factorssuch as their current motivational state or social surroundings (Markus &Wurf, 1987). Selfconceptcan be conceptualized in terms of both content and structure, that is how the personviews themselves and how this self-relevant information is organized. Social cognitiveresearchers have found out that people vary in the stability of their self-concept (Campbell et al,1996), and propose that an unstable self-concept results in sensitivity and susceptibility to selfrelevantfeedback (Campbell,1990). Psychologist, Carl Rogers (1951), was the first to establishthe notion of self-concept. According to Rogers, everyone strives to reach an ‘’ideal self’’ (thecloser one is to their ideal self, the happier one will be)Those who are unable to attain this goal may exhibit the fear of being negativelyevaluated by others and most times they tend to avoid socially evaluative situations. Rogersclaims that one factor in a person’s happiness is the “Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) fromothers. UPR often occur in close of familial relationship, and involves a consistent level ofattention regardless of the recipient emotion. According to Rogers, psychologically healthypeople actively move away from roles created by others expectations and instead look withinthemselves for validation. On the other hand neurotic people have self-concept that do not match4their own experiences. They are afraid to accept their own experiences as valid, so they distortthem, either to protect themselves or to win approval from others. One important theory relatedto self-concept is self-categorization theory (SCT), which states that self-concept consist of atleast two levels, a personal identity and a social identity. In other words ones self-evaluation relyon both self-perception and how others perceive them. If one perceives oneself as beingincompetent, this negative self-evaluation would affect the person’s behaviour or dispositionprobably negatively in the same hand, positive self-evaluation breeds confidence in socialsituations.The temporary self-appraisal theory supports the above notion; it posits that people have atendency to maintain a positive self-evaluation by distancing themselves from their negative selfand paying more attention to their positive one.Body image is the perception that a person has of their physical self and the thoughts andfeelings that result from that perception. These feelings can be positive, negative or both and areinfluenced by individuals and environmental factorsAccording to National Eating Disorders Collaboration (2014), there are four aspects ofbody image; it includes:(1) The perceptual body image which has to do with how one sees oneself. This is not always acorrect representation of how one actually looks. For example, a person may perceive his/herself as overweight when they are actually underweight.(2) The affective body image which has to do with the way one feels about one’s body. Itrelates to the amount of satisfaction or dissatisfaction one feels about one’s shape, weight andindividual body parts.5(3) The cognitive body image entails how one thinks about his or her body. This can lead topreoccupation with body shape and weight. For example, some people believe they will feelbetter about themselves if they are thinner or more muscular.(4) Behavioural body image which entails the several behaviours one engages in as a result ofone’s body image. When people are dissatisfied with the way they look, they may isolatethemselves because they feel bad about their appearance or employ destructive behaviours (e.gexcessive exercising, disordered eating) as a means to change their appearance.Positive body image is important because it is one of the protection factors which canmake a person more resilient to eating disorders, body dimorphic disorder, excessive exerciseand other unfavourable behaviours. Positive body image occurs when a person is able to accept,appreciate and respect his or her body. Personal appearance is very important to everyone. It mayinfluence how one feels about oneself, how one interacts with others, how one pays attention toone’s appearance on a daily basis, and what behaviours one practices in order to maintain one’simage (Sloan, 1995).Body dissatisfaction on the other hand, is a negative feeling about oneself, beauty, figure, colour,weight, height etc,(Obi, 2006).Body dissatisfaction is an internal process but can be influencedby several external factors. For example, family, friends, acquaintances, teachers and the mediaall have an impact on how a person sees and feels about themselves and their appearance.Individuals in appearance oriented environments or those who receive negative feedback abouttheir appearance are at an increased risk of body dissatisfaction.
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