Rejection sensitivity and trait anxiety: The indirect effects of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and shyness
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Rejection sensitivity and trait anxiety: The indirect effects of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and shyness Qinqin Wu 1 & Guangming Ran 1
&
Qi Zhang 2
Accepted: 11 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Rejection sensitivity has been demonstrated to be an important factor that is associated with trait anxiety. However, the underlying mechanisms of this association are less clear. The aim of this study was to test whether the association between rejection sensitivity and trait anxiety was indirectly affected by regulatory emotional self-efficacy and shyness. A total of 774 students (aged 17–32 years, M = 20.78 years, SD = 1.98) completed the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire, the Regulatory Emotional Self-efficacy Scale, the College Students’ Shyness Scale and the Trait Anxiety Scale. Our correlational analyses showed that rejection sensitivity was positively correlated with trait anxiety, supporting hypothesis 1. Furthermore, regulatory emotional selfefficacy was negatively related to rejection sensitivity and trait anxiety, while shyness was positively related to them, which provided support for hypothesis 2. More importantly, the results from structural equation modeling indicated that the relations of rejection sensitivity with trait anxiety were indirectly affected by regulatory emotional self-efficacy and shyness, supporting hypothesis 3. These findings suggested that regulatory emotional self-efficacy and shyness could explain how students’ rejection sensitivity influenced their trait anxiety and maladjustment. Keywords Rejection sensitivity . Regulatory emotional self-efficacy . Shyness . Trait anxiety . Indirect effects
Introduction Anxiety disorder is the most common mental disorder, and its incidence rate has been reported to be approximately 10–20% (Manassis 2000; Ran et al. 2017). Studies of anxiety are also common. There are usually two types of anxiety in operational measurement: state and trait anxiety. State anxiety refers to a transitory emotional condition or state characterized by individual subjective feelings and experience of tension, anxiety and apprehension, which is activated by the autonomic nervous system (Gaudry et al. 1975). Trait anxiety is defined as a relatively persistent and stable internal personality trait, which refers to individual differences in the frequency and intensity with the anxiety manifested itself over time (Barnes et al. 2002). Individuals who are high in trait anxiety scores are
* Guangming Ran [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Institute of Education, China West Normal University, Nanchong 637002, China
2
College of Preschool and Primary Education, China West Normal University, Nanchong 637002, China
more likely to feel apprehension and tension, show more intense activity of the autonomic nervous system and perceive more situations as dangerous or threatening than those who are low in trait anxiety. They also usually tend to have higher state anxiety scores (Barnes et al. 2002; Spie
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