MEASURING SOCIAL-COMMUNICATIVE ANXIETY: SOCIAL DESIRABILITY AND THE FAKABILITY OF SCALE RESPONSES

Three studies are reported that examine the social desirability and fakability (transparency) of a number of self-report measures of social-communicative anxiety. Results indicate that social desirability, assessed as a personality dimension, is generally unrelated to measures of social and communicative anxiety. However, virtually all measures of the anxiety were transparently fakable. When asked to portray themselves positively, subjects consistently responded as low-anxious; when asked to look undesirable, subjects completed the measures to suggest high anxiety.     

Am “I” more important than “we”? Couples’ word use in instant messages

Recent studies have identified robust associations between the types of words that people use and their psychological health. This study investigated whether couples’ word use in their daily instant messages (IMs) is linked to the quality and stability of their relationships. Sixty‐eight dating couples in the United States submitted 10 days of IM conversations with each other, which were analyzed with a linguistic word count program. Six months later, couples indicated whether they were still dating. Pronoun use and emotion word use both were associated with relationship satisfaction and stability. These findings extend previous research showing that the frequencies of certain words that people use are associated with the quality of their social relationships.     

COMMUNICATION FEAR: A CORRELATIONAL STUDY OF TRAIT GENERALITY

Recent theoretical analyses of communication fear have employed the analogy of state and trait anxiety. Communication apprehension is considered to be representative of general trait anxiety which is a function of disordered personality processes. Public speaking fear represents state anxiety and is a function of normal social evaluation anxiety. Two studies are reported which correlate state-trait measures of anxiety with communication apprehension and public speaking fear. The data support the hypothesis that communication apprehension is associated with trait anxiety but, contrary to the theoretical analysis, public speaking anxiety is associated with both state anxiety and trait anxiety. The results are discussed in terms of the theoretical analysis of communication fear. The implications for future research on assessment and amelioration of communication fear are considered.