(PS2-A12) Understanding Ethnic Differences in Social Anxiety: Exploring Anticipatory Appeasement as a Predictor of Social Interaction Anxiety

Studies that have examined cultural and ethnic differences in social anxiety have shown that individuals of East Asian heritage on average tend to report higher social anxiety symptoms compared to European Americans. There have been growing attempts to understand the cultural factors and mechanisms that may help explain this group difference. Cultural differences in appeasement, the process by which individuals pacify others to avoid conflict and restore social relations, appear to be an underlying mechanism that may help explain ethnic differences in social anxiety. The current study focused on what Keltner et al. (1997) referred to as anticipatory appeasement (i.e., general and dispositional appeasement strategies such as polite modesty and shyness) and explored whether anticipatory appeasement strategies may be partly responsible for self-reported social anxiety symptoms among Asian Americans, European Americans, and Korean nationals.

To date, we collected data from 148 European Americans, 200 Asian Americans, and 337 Koreans. The participants were 58.1% females and had a mean age of 22.13 years (SD = 3.92). An additional 75 European Americans and 75 Asian Americans are expected for final analyses.  All participants completed multiple online surveys on family demographics, social interaction anxiety symptoms (SIAS-6; Peters et al., 2012), and two forms of anticipatory appeasement: modesty (Modest Response Scale [MRS]; Whetstone et al., 1992), and shyness (Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale [RCBS]; Cheek, 1983).

A preliminary one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference in social anxiety symptoms among the three groups, F (2, 682) = 3.594, p = .028. Tukey’s HSD Test for multiple comparisons found that the mean value of SIAS was significantly different between European Americans and Asian Americans (p = 0.28, 95% C.I. [-2.99, -.13]. There was no statistically significant difference between European Americans and Koreans (p = 0.67) or between Koreans and Asian Americans (p = .79). A preliminary hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted, with age, gender, and ethnicity entered in the first block and modesty and shyness entered in the second block as predictors. Among the control variables, age and ethnicity were significantly associated with social anxiety symptoms (β = -.15. p < . 05, β = .83. p < . 01, respectively). The entry of anticipatory appeasement variables significantly improved the model fit, ∆F (2,674) = 450.63, p< .001, ∆R²=.56, with both modesty and shyness significantly associated with social anxiety (β = .02. p < . 05, β = .41. p < . 001, respectively). For the final analysis, structural equation modeling will be conducted to understand whether endorsement of appeasement measures may explain the higher social anxiety symptoms in Asian Americans. The preliminary results suggest that anticipatory appeasement may explain individual differences in social interaction anxiety. The final results of this study may be used to understand how appeasement may contribute to cultural differences in social anxiety symptoms and help inform more culturally adaptive perspectives for understanding and treating social anxiety.