Perceived Parental Attitudes and Hopelessness in Predicting Social Anxiety Symptoms of Turkish Male and Female Adolescents

Social anxiety is the most common anxiety disorder and it affects individuals' life very profoundly. Recent findings have suggested that both parental attitudes and hopelessness are potential vulnerability and maintenance factors for the development of social anxiety symptoms. Therefore, the aims of the current study were to examine whether social anxiety, perceived parental attitudes and hopelessness differ in male and female adolescents in order to identify predictors of social anxiety in Turkish adolescents. Hence, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the short form of EgnaMinnenBeträffandeUppfostran Scale (short-EMBU), and Hopelessness Scale were administered to 756 adolescents. Consistent with other findings, we could show that females experienced more social anxiety, perceived more emotional warmth and more overprotection from mother and mother than males. The results of a regression analysis for the whole sample revealed that being female, greater the number of sibling, older grades, low mother education, perceived rejection from mother and hopelessness are significant predictors of social anxiety. Finally, social anxiety was predicted by different variables for females, (class level, mother education, mother rejection, hopelessness) and males (number of sibling, hopelessness). Therefore, clinicians should consider these differences in their interventions