The fear of negative social evaluation and its relationship with agency locus in university students

Abstract

The current study aims to explore fear of negative social evaluation, willpower capacity, and the statistical significance of the correlation between these two variables among university students. The study adopted a descriptive correlational methodology, and to achieve its objectives, the researchers selected a sample of 600 students (male and female) from Mustansiriya University for the academic year 2023/2024, using stratified random sampling. A sub-sample of 400 students was used for statistical analysis, selected in the same manner.

The researchers adopted Leary’s (1983) scale for measuring fear of negative social evaluation, and Bandura et al.’s (1996) scale for measuring willpower capacity. After verifying the psychometric properties of the instruments and using appropriate statistical techniques.

The researchers concluded that university students exhibit a level of fear of negative social evaluation that is lower than the hypothetical average, while the study sample demonstrated a level of willpower capacity above the hypothetical average. Additionally, the findings revealed a negative (inverse) correlation between fear of negative social evaluation and willpower capacity.
In light of these results, the researchers offered a number of recommendations and proposed several suggestions for future research.