Socijalna anksioznost, skrivanje pravog ja i doživljavanje prijatnih emocija – prediktori kvaliteta prijateljstva u adolescenciji
Social Anxiety, Hiding One’s True Self, And Experiencing Pleasant Emotions – Predictors Of Friendship Qualityin Adolescence

Summary/Abstract: Social anxiety often causes different problems in human communication. The aim of this paper is to examine mutual relations between social anxiety, the need to hide one’s true self, cognition via positive emotional experience, and thequality ofadolescents’ close relationships. The appropriate sample consists of 152 secondary school students of both gendersfrom Valjevo(75 male seniors and 77 female seniors), aged 18.6 on average. The following measuring instruments were used in the research: Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, Social Phobia Scale, Positive and Negative Affect Scale, questionnaire onbeliefs about the need to hide one’s true self, and Friendship Quality Questionnaire. Descriptive indicators and internal consistency are satisfactory and similar to the ones in other validation studies. Correlation and hierarchy regression analysis was used to statistically process the results, whereby friendship quality was the criterion variable, whereas other variables were predictors. Result analysis shows that the need to hide one’s true self and the perception of pleasant emotions are beyond the control of gender and both types of social fears, and that they are relevant and characteristic predictors of adolescent friendship quality. Gender was extracted as a statistically important partial predictor in every step of the linear regression model, whereas theinteraction effect ofvariables of gender and both types of social fearsis not significant for criterion prediction. However, an important part of the friendship quality criterion variance remained unexplained, so it is recommended that some other variables should be examined as potential predictors amongadolescents. The results obtained in this study are completely in accordance with the results of previous studies. Furthermore, these results are significant for the theoretical understanding of self-discovery and development of close relationships; they also have a practical significance for socially anxious adolescents whoare prone to hiding their true self.

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