(PS5-56) Hope as a Cross-Cultural Protective Factor Against Social Anxiety

Abstract Text: Symptoms of social anxiety are associated with functional impairment both at home and at work, as well as within one’s relationships and social life (Ruscio et al., 2008). Because of this, an important line of research is focused on identifying protective factors that buffer against symptoms of social anxiety. Hope, a resilience trait defined as the extent to which an individual feels they have pathways to achieve their goals and agency to effectively pursue them, has been identified as one possible protective factor (Snyder et al., 1991). Hope has been shown to predict lower levels of social anxiety disorder (Richardson, 2023). Changes in hope also appear to be associated with changes in social anxiety (Gallagher et al., 2020). However, little research has examined whether the relationship between hope and social anxiety is expressed differently within diverse racial/ethnic groups. The aim of the present study is to explore if greater hope predicts less social anxiety across a diverse sample and within four distinct racial/ethnic groups (Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and White).
Participants for this study were 1570 undergraduate students (10.6% Black, 24.3% White, 32.2% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 33.0% Hispanic/Latinx) at a large Southwestern university. Hope was measured using the Adult Hope Scale (AHS; Snyder et al., 1991). Social anxiety was measured using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS; Liebowitz, 1987). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to explore the relationship between the two variables. Model fit statistics were acceptable for each of the models that were estimated (RMSEA ≤ 0.08, TLI > 0.96, CFI > 0.97, SRMR < 0.04).
A structural equation model demonstrated that across the full diverse sample hope predicts social anxiety (β = -.36, 95% CI [-0.41, -0.32], R^2 = .13). Additional models showed that higher hope predicted lower levels of social anxiety in the Asian/Pacific Islander group (β = -.35, 95% CI [-0.43, -0.26], R^2 = .12), the Black group (β = -.47, 95% CI [-0.60, -0.34], R^2 = .22), the Hispanic/Latinx group (β = -.32, 95% CI [-0.40, -0.24], R^2 = .10), and the White group (β = -.40, 95% CI [-0.49, -0.31], R^2 = .16). Based on the confidence intervals of the standardized effects, the association between hope and social anxiety was meaningfully less within the Hispanic/Latinx group when compared to the Black group.
These findings suggest that hope is a meaningful predictor of social anxiety across a diverse sample and within the four distinct racial/ethnic groups examined in this study. The negative association between the variables suggests hope may protect against symptoms of social anxiety within and across diverse racial/ethnic groups. This suggests that hope is not only an important protective factor against social anxiety within traditionally studied samples of White individuals, but also within diverse racial/ethnic groups as well. Given that hope was negatively associated with social anxiety within each of the racial/ethnic groups, hope appears to be an important cross-cultural marker of resilience. Future research should continue to explore potential between-group differences, as well as the role of hope within treatment of social anxiety among diverse racial/ethnic groups.