Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7456-8526

Date of Award

Summer 8-20-2025

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Clinical Psychology

First Advisor

Sarah Hayes-Skelton

Second Advisor

Lizabeth Roemer

Third Advisor

Jae Puckett

Abstract

Within the United States, neoliberal systems of economic exploitation and oppression act as structural determinants of health, contributing to social anxiety inequitably across individuals. In order to situate current cognitive behavioral research on and limits of treatment for social anxiety within a framework that transcends immediate psychological processes, the current study had two primary aims: (1) offer a theoretically grounded and structurally informed ecological model of social anxiety etiology and maintenance, and (2) empirically examine the relation between social vulnerabilities (e.g., peer victimization, identity-based discrimination) and social anxiety, the mediating role of cognitive mechanisms (negative social self-beliefs and public self-consciousness) in this relation, and the moderating role of neoliberal ideology on the relation between social vulnerabilities and cognitive mechanisms of social anxiety. The second aim of this project was tested using structural equation modeling based on cross-sectional data from a diverse online sample (N = 246). Results of the study supported previous research on the positive relation between social anxiety and its cognitive mechanisms as well as social vulnerability and social anxiety. Negative social self-beliefs fully mediated the relation between social vulnerability and social anxiety, while public self-consciousness partially mediated the relation between social vulnerability and social anxiety. Contrary to our hypotheses, neoliberal ideology (as measured by system justification) moderated the relation between social vulnerability and negative social self-beliefs in the opposite direction than expected, such that at high levels of neoliberal ideology, the relation between social vulnerability and negative social self-beliefs was significantly weaker than at low levels of neoliberal ideology. Neoliberal ideology did not moderate the relation between social vulnerability and public self-consciousness. Across both aims of this project, we identified, through theoretical and empirical exploration, broader ecological determinants of social anxiety and its associated psychological mechanisms to address philosophical limitations in leading psychological theories conceptualizing social anxiety that largely ignore structure. Furthermore, these results have implications for current treatment of social anxiety by identifying opportunities for structural and social intervention that transcend and complement traditional psychotherapies.

Comments

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