Types of adults with different levels of social anxiety and conflict behavior

Abstract

Background: The purpose of the study was to find out and describe types of adults singled out due to the level of social anxiety and conflict-handling modes. Methods: The sample consisted of 106 college educated adults aged 22-46 (M = 33.29, SD = 5.74), 30 males (28.3%) and 76 females (71.7%) among them. The data were collected via Sagalakova – Truevtsev social anxiety and social phobia questionnaire, Thomas – Kilmann conflict mode instrument. Findings: The results of descriptive statistics, k-means clustering and dispersion analysis allowed to distinguish three significantly different groups of adults: with moderately increased social anxiety (n=30), with increased social anxiety (n=51) and with high social anxiety (n=25). The adults of the last group possessed high level of all types of social anxiety included into the general index. They were significantly lower in competing, collaborating and compromising and higher in avoiding and accommodating than the other groups were. At the same time, no significant difference was found in collaborating and accommodating between all the adults. Discussion: The limitations of the study are connected with a small sample that was not balanced in sex, age and level of social anxiety expression, and only two diagnostic instruments used. However, we consider the received data help to forecast different types of phobias in adults due to their conflict-handling modes and to change their conflict behavior in the training program so that to overcome different types of social anxiety.