Social Anxiety Questionnaire: Developing a Brief Social Phobia Scale
This paper presents the development and preliminary validation of the Social Anxiety Questionnaire (SAQ), a concise 14-item self-report scale designed to measure social anxiety in everyday and clinical contexts. Eighty-nine college students completed the SAQ alongside the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and Eysenck's Introversion Scale. The study evaluated internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha and examined convergent validity by correlating mean scores across all three instruments. Results indicated good reliability (α = .85) and strong, significant correlations with both comparison scales, particularly the SIAS. Limitations including the neutral-point response format, the use of item means rather than total scores, and the lack of discriminant validity testing are discussed, along with directions for future research.
- Introduction: Background on social anxiety disorder and scale rationale
- Method: Participants, instruments, and data collection procedure
- Results: Item statistics, alpha reliability, and inter-item correlations
- Convergent Validity of the Social Anxiety Questionnaire: Cross-scale correlations and validity comparison
- Discussion: Interpretation of findings, limitations, and future directions
- References: APA-formatted source list
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What makes this paper effective
- Clear rationale: the paper identifies a genuine gap in the literature — the scarcity of brief (<20-item) validated social anxiety scales — and uses this to motivate the new instrument.
- Transparent reporting of limitations: the author candidly discusses the neutral-point scoring problem, the use of item means rather than total scores, and the absence of discriminant validity testing, which strengthens the paper's credibility.
- Appropriate comparison instruments: choosing both a closely related measure (SIAS) and a theoretically adjacent but distinct construct (introversion) allows the paper to demonstrate that convergent validity is not simply an artefact of measuring the same thing twice.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates convergent validity testing through a multi-scale correlation design. By predicting that the SAQ would correlate more strongly with the SIAS than with the Introversion Scale — and confirming this pattern — the author shows that the new instrument measures social anxiety rather than a related but distinct trait. This approach follows Campbell and Fiske's (1959) multitrait-multimethod logic and is a standard technique in psychometric research.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows APA empirical-report format: an introduction contextualizing social anxiety disorder and identifying the scale-development gap; a Method section covering participants, three instruments, and procedure; a Results section reporting item statistics, reliability coefficients, and the correlation matrix; and a Discussion that interprets findings, acknowledges methodological limitations, and outlines future directions. Tables supplement the prose at the appropriate points.
Introduction
Social anxiety disorder (also known as social phobia) consists of feelings of apprehension, worry, or nervousness concerning being placed in situations where one may interact with or be scrutinized by others (Weeks, Heimberg, Rodebaugh, & Norton, 2008). Nearly everyone experiences some degree of anxiety pertaining to specific social situations, but a social anxiety disorder is identified when this level of anxiety is extreme, unrealistic, and disproportionate to the situation (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000). Most often the anxiety in this disorder is derived from an individual's anticipation of being evaluated by others, or fear that he or she will appear nervous or anxious in front of others. The fear or apprehension of being in unfamiliar social situations, or of being evaluated by others, can be so intense that the individual may be unable to carry out normal functions. Such individuals often experience extreme anxiety when merely imagining themselves in these situations and may attempt to avoid social situations that provoke these feelings altogether (Anthony, 1997).
Social anxiety disorders can present in a number of different ways, including the fear of eating or drinking in front of others, the fear of performing in front of others (writing, working, or speaking), or fears of interacting with people. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), social anxiety disorder or social phobia is the most common anxiety disorder, and social anxiety is the third most common mental disorder in the United States, affecting over 15 million people a year (APA, 2000). Social anxiety disorders often originate in adolescence and are more common in women than in men (Anthony, 1997). The effects of social anxiety disorder can be devastating to children, adolescents, and adults alike. Psychometric instruments designed to assess for social anxiety can therefore be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of the disorder (Anthony, 1997; Heimberg & Turk, 2002).
Several scales have been developed to measure social anxiety in individuals (Anthony, 1997; Mattick & Clarke, 1998); however, few contain fewer than 20 items. The goal of the current study was to develop a scale of social anxiety that was both succinct and psychometrically sound — that is, valid and reliable.
Method
Participants
Eighty-nine college students were contacted via email and completed the surveys online. No information was gathered regarding the age, sex, level of education, or ethnic background of the participants.
Measures
The Social Anxiety Questionnaire
The Social Anxiety Questionnaire was developed by the author after studying existing questionnaires and drawing upon their questions and conceptual frameworks. The final scale consisted of 14 statements regarding the subjective experience of anxiety in social situations (see Table 1 for the complete list of items). Statements were worded in the first-person format, and each item was answered on a five-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, with a neutral midpoint (Neither Agree nor Disagree). In addition to the Social Anxiety Questionnaire, two other measures were used in this study for convergent validity comparison purposes.
Social Interaction Anxiety Scale
The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS; Mattick & Clarke, 1998), which measures anxiety regarding social interactions, remains one of the more widely used self-report measures of social anxiety. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated the scale's excellent reliability and construct validity (Brown, Turovsky, Heimberg, Juster et al., 1997; Heimberg & Turk, 2002). The scale consists of 20 statements worded in the first person. Statements are answered on a five-point scale ranging from Not At All to Extremely, with no neutral midpoint.
Eysenck Introversion Scale
This is a 12-item scale recommended by Eysenck (1970; 1971) and first employed by McCroskey and associates (see McCroskey, 1985). The scale has demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. Items are rated on a five-point scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, with a neutral midpoint. Introversion has been shown to be associated with social anxiety, but it is not the same construct (APA, 2000). Because the items were recommended by Eysenck, the scale will be referred to as the Eysenck Introversion Scale throughout this paper.
Procedure
Participants were contacted via email and asked to complete the questionnaires. Those who chose to participate filled out all three questionnaires online. Data were collected online and transferred into SPSS 20 for analysis.
Results
Not all participants completed all three surveys. Thirty-nine participants fully completed the Social Anxiety Questionnaire along with the other questionnaires.
Social Anxiety Questionnaire Item Statistics
The means and standard deviations for the 14 items on the Social Anxiety Questionnaire are presented in Table 1.
As shown in Table 1, participants most frequently answered in a negative (no experience of anxiety) or neutral manner. No overall mean item score was markedly above 3.0. The overall mean score across the 14 items was 2.845 (SD = 1.05). The lowest mean score occurred on item 1 ("I feel uncomfortable being introduced to other people"), while the highest mean score occurred on item 5 ("I feel insecure and out of place in unfamiliar social situations").
Cronbach's alpha for the 14 questions on the Social Anxiety Questionnaire was .85, indicating good item agreement and suggesting that the items collectively measure a similar construct (Cronbach, 1951). All items appeared to hang together well, as no single item would have resulted in a significant increase in alpha if deleted. Inspection of the inter-item correlation matrix indicated low-to-moderate correlations across most items (between .3 and .5), reflecting meaningful relationships among questions without redundancy — that is, the items did not measure the exact same aspect of social anxiety. Two items displayed a notably higher number of low relationships with other questions: items 8 and 13 both showed correlations below .2 with five other items each (not the same five items in each case). However, the removal of either item would not have significantly raised the alpha coefficient. Two questions were correlated at slightly above .75 (items 5 and 6), and no two items were correlated at .8 or above.
Table 1. Means and standard deviations for items on the Social Anxiety Questionnaire.
1. I feel uncomfortable being introduced to other people. (M = 2.196, SD = 1.000)
2. I feel unease being watched or observed while doing something. (M = 3.078, SD = 1.074)
3. It makes me stressed to say something in a group discussion. (M = 3.000, SD = 1.217)
4. My heart beats fast when meeting people in authority. (M = 3.216, SD = 1.113)
5. I feel insecure and out of place in unfamiliar social situations. (M = 3.216, SD = 1.064)
6. I feel embarrassed and blush easily when meeting someone new. (M = 2.628, SD = 1.058)
7. Meeting other people's eyes is a challenging task for me. (M = 2.431, SD = 1.044)
8. I tend to feel relaxed while interacting with a group of unfamiliar people. (M = 3.172, SD = 0.974)
9. I tend to feel nervous and easily irritated in an informal social meeting with my co-workers/classmates. (M = 2.412, SD = 0.942)
10. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with negative opinions and thoughts, which keeps me from doing things I truly want to do. (M = 3.098, SD = 0.985)
11. Knowing that I have to attend a social event, I tend to worry about it for days or even weeks ahead of time. (M = 2.882, SD = 1.143)
12. My bad experiences in a previous social situation cause me to lose confidence when encountering a similar situation. (M = 3.039, SD = 1.058)
13. I feel at ease and confident arguing with people when I witness injustice in a social situation. (M = 3.020, SD = 0.948)
14. I feel reluctant when returning goods to a store for a refund. (M = 2.608, SD = 0.981)
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