Investigation of self-esteem and social anxiety levels of adolescents

In this research, the relationship between self-esteem and social anxiety levels of 10th and 11th grade students and the difference of these two variables according to some sociodemografic variables were investigated.The universe is consisted of all 10th and 11th grade students attending to high schools in İzmir during 2011-2012 academic year. The sample is consisted 152 girls and 148 boys, totally 300 students.Data was collected by Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, Social Anxiety Scale and a questionnaire which was developed by the researcher. Data was analyzed by using SPPS 15 programme, by Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H and for correlation analysis, Spearman Brown analysis was used.According to result, it was found that there is a statistically significant negative relationship between self-esteem levels and social anxiety levels of adolescents. There is no difference on self-esteem levels and general social anxiety levels and the levels of social anxiety subscales according to gender, age, parental marital status, father's employment status, socioeconomic status, the place where one lives most, having a romantic relationship.Results showed that, according to mother's employment status, mother's education level and attending outside school activities, there is no statistically significant difference on the self-esteem levels and sense of wortlessness levels of adolescents, however, there is statistically significant differences on the general social anxiety, social avoidance and being criticized anxiety levels of adolescents. It was found the general social anxiety levels and social avoidance and being criticized anxiety levels of adolescents were lower when mother has a job, when mother's education level is high and when the adolescent attends to outside school activities.Result showed that according to percieved mother's attitudes and percieved school achievement, there is statistically significant differences on self-esteem levels of adolescents, however, there is no statistically significant differences on general social anxiety and all subscales of social anxiety.According to father's attitudes, there was found a statistically significant differences between self-esteem levels and sense of worthlessness levels of adolescents. According to father's education level, there was found a statistically significant difference between general social anxiety and being criticized anxiety levels of adolescents. According to having a peer group, there was found a statistically significant difference between self-esteem levels, social avoidance and sense of wortlesness levels of adolescents. According to having a positive body image, decision making on his/her own, having difficulity in speaking in fronf of crowd and being irritated when criticized, there was found statistically significant differences between self-esteem levels and general social anxiety levels with all subscales.Keywords: Adolescence, Self-Esteem, Social Anxiety.