Social Phobia 363
Cognitive Questionnaires of Social Anxiety
Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale
The Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE) is the most widely used questionnaire in
social anxiety because it assesses a core cognitive feature of the disorder, fear of negative
evaluation. The 30-item true/false scale was originally developed by Watson and Friend
(1969) to assess expectation, apprehension, distress, and avoidance of social evalua-
tive situations. It was intended to be administered along with its companion scale, the
28-item Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD). Although the FNE demonstrates
good reliability and correlates with other measures of social anxiety especially in uni-
versity student samples, questions have been raised about its divergent validity with
depression and general distress as well as its differential sensitivity to diagnosable social
phobia (see D. B. Clark et al., 1997; Hope et al., 1996–1997).
Leary (1983) developed a brief 12-item version of the FNE and replaced the dichoto-
mous rating with a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“not at all characteristic of me”)
to 5 (“extremely characteristic of me”). The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale
(BFNE) has good internal consistency (a = .90) and correlates highly with the original
FNE (r = .96; Leary, 1983). Moreover, it has positive correlations with other measures
of social anxiety and individuals with social phobia score significantly higher than those
with panic disorder or a community sample (Collins, Westra, Dozois, & Stewart, 2005).
However, confirmatory factor analysis revealed problems with the four reverse- scored
items (Duke, Krishnan, Faith, & Storch, 2006; Rodebaugh, Woods, et al., 2004). Thus
a revised BFNE 8-item (BFNE-II) was produced in which all items are straightforwardly
worded and the total score correlated .99 with the 12-item BFNE (Carleton, Collimore,
& Asmundson, 2007). At this point either the 8- or 12-item BFNE-II is recommended
with all items worded in a straightforward fashion. The BFNE-II items can be found in
Carleton et al. (2007).
Social Interaction Self- Statement Test
The Social Interaction Self- Statement Test (SISST) consists of 15 positive (facilitative)
and 15 negative (inhibitory) self- statements associated with heterosocial dyadic inter-
actions (Glass, Merluzzi, Biever, & Larsen, 1982). Some researchers have eliminated
the role play and instruct individuals to rate frequency of thoughts before, during, or
after any interactions with the opposite sex (Dodge, Hope, Heimberg, & Becker, 1988).
Various studies have shown that the SISST Positive and Negative scores correlate with
other self- report measures of social anxiety (Dodge et al., 1988; Glass et al., 1982) and
individuals with social phobia score significantly higher on SISST Negative and lower
on SISST Positive than other anxiety disorder groups or nonclinical controls (Becker,
Namour, et al., 2001; Beidel et al., 1985; Turner et al., 1986), although SISST Nega-
tive subscale may be more sensitive to social anxiety than SISST Positive (Dodge et al.,
1988). Unfortunately, the SISST has limited clinical value because of its specific focus
on heterosocial interactions. A copy of the questionnaire can be found in an appendix
to Glass et al. (1982) as well as in Orsillo (2001, Appendix B).