Summer Boggs, a doctoral student working in the lab, successfully defended her master’s thesis yesterday. Summer’s thesis, "Social Anxiety and Relational Aggression in the Peer Relationships of College Women," examined the possible role of fear of negative evaluation in relational aggression in a sample of college women, utilizing Social Information Processing theory. Summer's sample proved to be unusually high on every measure of anxiety used, suggesting some limitations in the generalizability of her findings. Contrary to her predictions, fear of negative evaluation was not associated with higher levels of relational aggression. On the other hand, a broader measure of social anxiety did show a relationship with relational aggression, some of which was mediated by hostile attribution bias.

Congratulations to Summer on her successful thesis defense!

Tags: anxiety, gender, relational aggression