The Core Social Fears Scale for Adolescents: Psychometric appraisal based on community and clinical samples

Abstract

This study presents the Core Social Fears Scale for Adolescents (CSFS-A), developed to assess the Interaction, Performance, and Observation social fears that may be core to social anxiety in adolescence. This measure also assesses General Avoidance of social situations. A school-based sample of 3009 adolescents (53.7% female; age range: 12–19 years) and a clinical sample of 162 adolescents diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (70.4% female; age range: 15–18 years) provided information on anxiety experienced and avoidance engaged in during in social events; some participants also reported on another measure of social anxiety and fears of negative and positive evaluation. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a three-factor model reflecting correlated core social fears, as well as a unidimensional model for general avoidance, as applied to community and clinical participants. These models were invariant based on sex, age-groups (early, middle, and late adolescence), and clinical status. All measures had at least good internal consistency values. Evidence of convergent validity was found based on correlations between the scale’s measures and measures of social anxiety and fear of negative and positive evaluation. The Core Social Fears Scale for Adolescents proved to be a psychometrically robust measure for the assessment and characterization of the adolescents’ experience of social anxiety.