"I Have a Complicated Picture of Myself": The Association Between Social Anxiety and Social Competence on Internet Dating Applications
Publisher
The University of Arizona.Rights
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Dissertation not available (per author's request)Abstract
Social anxiety (SA) is associated with excessive fear of negative evaluation. Individuals with heightened SA often experience difficulties developing face-to-face (Ftf), romantic relationships. Consequently, many people with SA turn to online dating applications to connect with prospective partners. This dissertation involved two studies that examined how socially anxious individuals (SAIs) present themselves online and how they interpret negative evaluation cues in hypothetical daters’ online dating profiles. First, guided by the hyperpersonal model, I conducted a content analysis to examine the association between social competencies on online dating profiles and social anxiety. In a survey, 146 emerging adults completed a survey on social anxiety and uploaded their dating profiles to an online database. Two undergraduate students coded the dating profiles to assess seven competencies evident in emerging adults’ dating profiles. Results suggest that social anxiety was not associated with (in)articulation, warranting, self-deprecation, social confirmation, emotional expression, self-presentation, or disclosure on online dating apps. Second, guided by the cognitive-behavioral model, this dissertation analyzed whether social anxiety moderates the relationship between perceived low warmth in online dating profiles and attraction. In an experiment, 220 participants reviewed a curated online profile of a user varying by gender and warmth. Results suggest social anxiety moderated the negative association between low perceived warmth and attraction such that social anxiety strengthened the negative association. Collectively, the findings suggest that social anxiety has a greater influence on decoding than encoding processes within internet dating applications.Type
textElectronic Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.Degree Level
doctoralDegree Program
Graduate CollegeCommunication