ArticleBMC psychiatry2025
The relationship between childhood trauma and social anxiety in college students: the mediating role of evaluation fear.
Article in BMC psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Emotion regulation and social information processing as targets of a guided selective prevention app for emerging adults with a history of adverse childhood experiences: A randomised controlled trial.Internet interventions · 2026Article
- Impact of teacher feedback on social working memory and associations with students' fear of evaluation in adolescents.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- The mediating role of emotional empathy in the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and misophonia: a structural equation modeling.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The role of parental attachment, cyberbullying victimization, and resilience in the effect of adverse childhood experiences on social anxiety among college students: a moderated chain mediation model.BMC public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSocial anxiety has become a common psychological problem that seriously affects the mental health of contemporary youth. Although numerous studies have shown that childhood trauma is closely related to social anxiety in adulthood, the mediating role of evaluation of fear in this relationship remains unclear. This study aims to explore the relationships among childhood trauma, evaluation fear, and social anxiety among college students and their internal pathways.
methodsIn September 2023, a sample of 559 Chinese university students aged 18-22 years (mean age = 20.20, SD = 1.211; 229 males and 330 females) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Fear of Positive Evaluation Scale, and Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale. Correlation analyses were conducted to explore the initial relationships among the main variables. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the parallel mediating effects of fear of positive and negative evaluation on the relationship between childhood trauma and social anxiety.
resultsSignificant correlations were found among childhood trauma, social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and fear of positive evaluation. Childhood trauma significantly and positively predicted both fear of positive evaluation (β = 0.40, p < 0.001) and fear of negative evaluation (β = 0.31, p < 0.001). Fear of positive and negative evaluation also positively predicted social anxiety (β = 0.45, p < 0.001; β = 0.43, p < 0.001, respectively). The parallel mediation effects of fear of positive and negative evaluation on the relationship between childhood trauma and social anxiety were significant (effect size: 0.309, 95% CI = [0.240, 0.380]), with the mediation effects accounting for 60.78% of the total effect.
conclusionFear of positive and negative evaluation plays a mediating role in the impact of childhood trauma on social anxiety. This finding provides a new perspective for understanding the formation mechanism of social anxiety and offers a scientific basis for developing effective intervention strategies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.