The mediating role of self-efficacy and rejection sensitivity on the relationship between the social anxiety and self-compassion among university students

As social beings, humans want to make a good impression on others since they desire to establish and maintain close relationships with others, and they feel intense social anxiety if they think they cannot make this impression. The social anxiety they feel might cause people to avoid certain social environments, to communicate with others or to take certain actions. Social anxiety, known to be common among university students as well, may make it difficult for students to adapt to university life. Previous studies show that there is a negative relationship between self-compassion and social anxiety, and interventions to increase self-compassion may decrease social anxiety. Thus, understanding better the relationship between self-compassion and social anxiety is important for the interventions regarding social anxiety. There are findings in the literature about the relationships of rejection sensitivity and self-efficacy both with self-compassion and social anxiety. It is reported that self-compassion has a negative relationship with rejection sensitivity and a positive relationship with self-efficacy whereas social anxiety has a positive relationship with rejection sensitivity and a negative relationship with self-efficacy. A negative relationship is also reported between rejection sensitivity and self-efficacy. Thus, this study aims to investigate both the separate and the serial mediation effects of rejection sensitivity and self-efficacy on the relationship between self-compassion and social anxiety. 303 undergraduate and graduate students between the ages of 17 – 46 (75.2% female) completed the survey online on Qualtrics, including a demographic information form, Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Self-Compassion Scale, Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire, and General Self-Efficacy Scale. The data is analyzed via SPSS Macro PROCESS (Model 6) with 5000 bootstraps and found that rejection sensitivity and general self-efficacy significantly mediate the relationship between self-compassion and social anxiety, both separately and in a serial way. Thus, decreasing rejection sensitivity while increasing self-efficacy with therapeutic exercises to support the interventions and therapies for social anxiety might help reduce the social anxiety symptoms and achieve long-term gains.