Analysis of socially anxious adolescents' self contstructions in school context

The aim of this research is to analyse socially anxious adolescents' self constructions in a school context, with ages ranging between 16 to 17, the critical period of development and maintanience of SAD. Therefore, with an integrated perspective of bio-psycho-social and identity developmental stages of adolescence, this resarch reveals substantial data about socially anxious adolescents' cognitive constructs in relation to the self and significant others in a school context. With a mixed type of research design, the research is conducted with data obtained from Kelly's (1955; 1991) Repetory Grid Technique, from the participants, who has taken the Libowitz Social Anxiety Scale (and the Brief Sympthom Inventory to varify the data obtained from the participants with lower level of social anxiety. Then, the participants are divided into categories of the Research Group (the paticipants with higher level of social anxiety) and the Comparison Group (the paticipants with lower scores of social anxiety) Focusing on the socially anxious adolescents' self constructions (e.g. self-esteem and self-integration) the research enables a healthy comparison between the data from higher socially anxious adolescents with their non-socially anxious counterparts. The research reveales that the socially anxious adolescents do not necessarily have lower self esteem, and that they lack of functioning in self entegration defined as "social alienation", contrary to non-socially anxious adolescents, all of whom have higher self-esteem, a functional self-integration, and positive cognitive constructs, Therefore, it can be concluded that SAD may not be necessarily related to self esteem or self complexity. The results of the research may contribute to the relevant literature of the development of adolescent SAD in schools. Key Words: Adolescence, Social Anxiety, Personal Construct Psychology, Self-Integration