Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

Behavior Therapy 42 (2011) 183 196

www.elsevier.com/locate/bt

The Negative Self-Portrayal Scale: Development, Validation,

and Application to Social Anxiety
David A. Moscovitch
Vanessa Huyder
University of Waterloo

The Negative Self-Portrayal Scale (NSPS) is a new questionnaire designed to assess the extent to which individuals
are concerned that specific self-attributes they view as being
deficient will be exposed to scrutiny and evaluation by
critical others in social situations. These concerns have been
proposed to drive symptoms of social anxiety and account
for individual differences in social fears and avoidance
behaviors (Moscovitch, 2009). Here, we introduce the NSPS
and examine its factor structure and psychometric properties across two large samples of North American undergraduate students with normally distributed symptoms of
social anxiety. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a 3-factor solution representing concerns
about (a) social competence; (b) physical appearance; and
(c) signs of anxiety. The NSPS was found to have good
internal consistency and test-retest reliability, strong convergent validity, and adequate discriminant validity. In
addition, NSPS total scores accounted for a significant
proportion of unique variance in self-concealment (i.e.,
safety) behaviors over and above established symptom
measures of social interaction anxiety, social performance
anxiety, and depression. Results are discussed in relation to
theoretical models of social anxiety and the potential utility
of the NSPS for both clinical research and practice.

This research was supported, in part, thanks to funding from the

Canada Research Chairs Program to David A. Moscovitch. We are
grateful to Dr. Erik Woody for his helpful suggestions and
assistance with the statistical analyses.
Address correspondence to David A. Moscovitch, Ph.D., Canada
Research Chair in Mental Health Research, Department of
Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1; e-mail: dmosco@uwaterloo.ca.
0005-7894/10/183196/$1.00/0
2010 Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Published by
Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

THERE IS A GROWING consensus that the perception

of self plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis and
persistence of social anxiety (cf. Stopa, 2009a).
Although specific conceptualizations of the self
differ across contemporary cognitive and interpersonal models of social anxiety (Alden &
Taylor, 2004; Clark & Wells, 1995; Hofmann,
2007; Leary & Kowalski, 1995; Rapee &
Heimberg, 1997), there is now strong empirical
support for the view that symptoms of social
anxiety arise from the discrepancy produced by
the motivation to convey a desired social impression of oneself to others in combination with the
expectation that one will fail to do so (e.g.,
Schlenker & Leary, 1985). Indeed, numerous
studies have shown that highly socially anxious
individuals significantly underestimate their social
performance abilities as well as other salient
social self-attributes, and routinely provide selfratings that fall well below their perception of the
standard they believe is required by relevant
audience evaluators (e.g., for reviews of this
literature, see Moscovitch & Hofmann, 2007;
Orr & Moscovitch, 2010a; Moscovitch, Orr,
Rowa, Gehring Reimer, & Antony, 2009).
Under social threat, highly socially anxious and
phobic individuals allocate increased attentional
resources toward monitoring their internal anxiety cues and other perceived negative features of
the self (Rapee & Heimberg, 1997; Spurr &
Stopa, 2002). This increase in self-monitoring
coincides with the experience of spontaneous,
recurrent, intrusive, and often vivid negative
mental self-images that are viewed from an
observer's perspective (Hackmann, Clark, &
McManus, 2000; Hackmann, Surawy, & Clark,
1998). These images tend to be negatively

184

moscovitch & huyder

distorted and exaggerated representations of the

self; nevertheless, they are perceived and processed by socially anxious individuals as being
accurate. As a result, these images capture
precious emotional and cognitive resources and
possibly prevent the encoding of salient positive
social and interpersonal cues in the external
environment (Clark & Wells, 1995).
On the basis of clinical observations and the
burgeoning empirical literature on the central role
of the self in social anxiety, Moscovitch (2009)
recently recommended that scientist-practitioners
engaged in assessing and treating patients with
social anxiety disorder (SAD) within an exposurebased cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) framework shift their focus in treatment from targeting
patients' feared social situations, to targeting more
directly the core feared stimuli in SAD. Moscovitch
proposed that the feared stimuli in SAD are specific
self-attributes that socially anxious individuals
perceive as being flawed or contrary to perceived
sociocultural norms, hypothesizing that it might be
possible to organize these self-attributes into broad
themes that fall across four nonorthogonal dimensions: (a) concerns about social skills and behaviors; (b) concerns about visible signs of anxiety;
(c) concerns about physical appearance; and (d)
concerns about personality. While research on
SAD has historically focused on socially anxious
individuals' concerns about social skills/behaviors
and signs of anxiety (see Moscovitch, 2009, for a
review of this literature), investigators have only
recently begun to examine the link between social
anxiety and heightened concerns about physical
appearance (Hart, Flora, Palyo, Fresco, Holle, &
Heimberg, 2008; Izgi, Akyz, Dogan, & Kugu,
2004; Rapee & Abbott, 2006) and personality
characteristics (Mansell & Clark, 1999; Wilson &
Rapee, 2006).
Moscovitch's (2009) model offers a potentially
useful, theory-guided heuristic for conceptualizing
symptom variations and individual differences in
social anxiety. Socially anxious people are heterogeneous with respect to the kinds of social
situations they fear and avoid (see Hofmann,
Heinrichs, & Moscovitch, 2004 for a review of
this literature), as well as the types of subtle
avoidance or safety behaviors they tend to use
(e.g., McManus, Sacadura, & Clark, 2008).
According to Moscovitch (2009), variations in
social fears and safety behaviors are functionally
related to underlying differences in self-attribute
concerns across the proposed dimensions. Specifically, social situations that are endorsed as being
anxiety-provoking are those which individuals
perceive as having the capacity to expose their

perceived self-deficiencies for public consumption.

In the same vein, subtle avoidance and safety
behaviors represent attempts to conceal or prevent
the public exposure of those self-attributes. Thus,
core concerns about self-attribute flaws are
proposed to drive the constellation of social
anxiety symptomssubjective distress, avoidance,
and self-concealmentthat are associated with
high levels of functional impairment in the
emotional, vocational, and interpersonal lives of
individuals with SAD (Ledley & Heimberg,
2005).
Although numerous psychometrically validated
measures of social anxiety are now widely
available, none specifically assesses self-portrayal
concerns across the proposed dimensions. Most of
the excellent social anxiety self-report measures
currently in circulation (e.g., LSAS-SR, SIAS, SPS,
SPIN, SPAI, etc.; see Antony, Orsillo, & Roemer,
2001) assess the level or type of social anxiety
symptoms that individuals may experience across
a variety of social performance and interaction
situations. Our objective in designing the Negative
Self-Portrayal Scale (NSPS) was not to add
another questionnaire to this list. Rather, we
wished to create a novel measure that directly
assessed the specific types of self-attributes that
Moscovitch (2009) proposed would elicit concerns
about self-presentation for socially anxious individuals in anxiety-provoking social situations.
Being able to identify and measure such concerns
might conceivably both enhance our understanding of symptom heterogeneity in social anxiety
and guide case conceptualization of SAD in
clinical practice. This may, in turn, help facilitate
the delivery of CBT for SAD in a more individually customized manner, thereby having the
potential to enhance SAD treatment outcomes.
Here, we examine the factor structure and
psychometric properties of the NSPS in two large
samples of individuals with social anxiety symptoms
distributed across the normal spectrum and begin to
investigate some of the central, but previously
untested, theoretical claims of Moscovitch's (2009)
model. Despite our theoretical hypotheses about
the factor structure of the NSPS across the
proposed dimensions, no previous studies have
tested these predictions empirically. Thus, we first
present an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the
NSPS in participant Sample 1, as recommended in
the early stages of scale development (e.g., Hurley
et al., 1997). Next, based on the results from
Sample 1, we follow up the EFA in Sample 2 with
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the derived
model and plausible competing models (Brown,
2006).

negative self-portrayal scale

Method
participants
Two groups of nonoverlapping undergraduate
participants (n = 225; n = 316) at a large, urban
Canadian university completed a series of online
questionnaires in exchange for partial course credit.
Initial Item Generation
An initial pool of 62 NSPS items was constructed by
the authors. These were then sent via electronic mail
to three independent Ph.D.-level scientist-practitioners with expertise in social anxiety research and
extensive experience treating individuals with SAD in
clinical settings. Assessors were given a randomized
list of the preliminary items along with an instruction
sheet defining the four hypothesized (Moscovitch,
2009) dimensions of self-attribute concerns (i.e.,
concerns about social skills and behaviors; concerns
about visible signs of anxiety; concerns about
physical appearance; and concerns about personality). Assessors were instructed to eliminate any items
that seemed redundant or unclear, add items they
thought were appropriate, and indicate the dimension in which they thought each self-attribute item
belonged, according to the definitions given to them.
Any items eliminated or misallocated by more than
one assessor were removed from the respective
inventory. Any new items that were suggested by at
least one assessor were added to the NSPS item pool,
provided they were face valid and nonredundant
with other items already on the list. Following this
process, 11 items were removed and 6 items were
added, resulting in a total of 57 NSPS items.

measures
Negative Self-Portrayal Scale (NSPS)
Participants were administered the 57-item NSPS.
Instructions to respondents asked them to rate the
degree to which they are concerned about certain
aspects of themselves when in anxiety-provoking
social situations. Response options per item ranged
from 1 to 5, with descriptive anchors listed as not at
all concerned to extremely concerned. There
were no reverse-scored items; higher scores represented greater self-portrayal concerns.
Self-Concealment Behaviors Inventory (SCBI)
The SCBI is a self-report measure of self-concealment
(i.e., safety) behaviors. This measure is essentially an
expanded version of the unpublished Social Behaviour Questionnaire (SBQ; Clark, Butler, Fennell,
Hackmann, McManus, & Wells, 1995; see also
McManus et al., 2009). Given that the SBQ is an
unpublished scale with unknown psychometric
properties, we chose to add items deemed by

185

experienced clinicians to be relevant to socially

anxious individuals. This was done using the
expert-guided process described above for the
NSPS. Following this process, 2 items were removed
and 9 items were added to our original 46-item pool,
resulting in a total of 53 SCBI items. Respondents
were instructed to rate how frequently they typically
engage in each of the listed behaviors before or
during anxiety-provoking social situations in order
to prevent or alleviate their experience of anxiety.1
Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and Social Interaction
Anxiety Scale (SIAS) (Mattick & Clarke, 1998)
The SPS and SIAS are companion 20-item selfreport scales that assess social performance and
interaction fears, respectively. Each item is rated on
a scale from 0 (not at all characteristic or true of me)
to 4 (extremely characteristic or true of me), with a
combination of sum- and reverse-scored items. Both
scales have been found to have good test-retest
reliability (r = 0.91-0.93) and convergent validity
(r = 0.59-0.77 with other measures of social anxiety), high levels of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha indices of 0.90 and 0.91), and to
distinguish between individuals with and without
SAD (Mattick & Clarke, 1998; Osman, Gutierrez,
Barrios, Kopper, & Chiros, 1998; Peters, 2000).
Liebowitz Social Anxiety ScaleSelf Report Version
(LSAS-SR; Baker, Heinrichs, Kim, & Hofmann, 2002)
The LSAS-SR is a 24-item self-report version of a
well-validated clinician-administered instrument
(Heimberg et al., 1999) that assesses fear and
avoidance, in separate subscales, across a number
of social and performance situations. For the fear
subscale (LSAS-F), each item is rated on a scale of
0 (none) to 3 (severe). For the avoidance subscale
(LSAS-A), each item is rated on a scale of 0 (never)
to 3 (usually). Like the clinician-administered
version, the LSAS-SR has been shown to have
good test-retest reliability (r = 0.83), internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha of 0.95), and convergent and discriminant validity (e.g., among patients
with SAD, correlations with other measures of
social anxiety were found to be significantly
stronger than correlations with measures of depression) (Baker et al., 2002; Fresco et al., 2001).
Obsessive Compulsive InventoryShort Version
(OCI-SV; Foa et al., 2002)
Originally adapted from the longer 42-item Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (Foa, Kozak, Salkvoskis,
Coles, & Amir, 1998), the OCI-SV is an 18-item
1
A copy of the SCBI is available upon request from the first
author.

186

moscovitch & huyder

brief self-report scale that measures concerns associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (e.g., I get
upset if objects are not arranged properly; I collect
things I don't need; etc.). Respondents are asked to
rate how much each item distresses or bothers them
on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely). The
OCI-SV has been found to have excellent test-retest
reliability (r = 0.820.84), good convergent validity
(r = 0.530.85 with other measures of OCD), and
high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha indices
of 0.81 to 0.93) (Foa et al., 2002). Of note, however,
was Foa and colleagues' (2002) finding that the
OCI-SV had a high correlation (r = 0.70) with the
Beck Depression Inventory, a conceptually distinct
measure of depression.
Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer,
& Brown, 1996)
The BDI-II is a 21-item self-report instrument for
assessing the intensity of depression in diagnosed
patients and detecting symptoms of depression in
normal populations. Respondents are instructed to
choose the statement amongst a group of statements that best applies to how they generally feel.
Each group of statements ranges from 0 (e.g., I do
not feel sad) to 3 (e.g., I am so sad or unhappy that I
can't stand it). The BDI-II has consistently been
shown to have adequate test-retest reliability
(r = .60.83 in nonclinical samples and r = .48.86
in clinical samples), good convergent and discriminant validity (e.g., the BDI-II has been found to be
significantly more strongly correlated with depression relevant measures, such as the Beck Hopelessness Scale, than with measures of anxiety, p b .01),
and high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha
indices of 0.76 to 0.95 in clinical populations and
.73 to .92 in nonclinical populations; Osman,
Barrios, Gutierrez, Williams, & Bailey, 2008).

procedure
All questionnaires were administered in online
sessions via a standardized web-based automated
computer program that was designed to protect

participants confidentiality and the security of their

data. Participants in Group 1 completed two online
sessions. The first session included administration
of the BDI-II, LSAS-SR, OCI-SV, SPS, and SIAS.
Due to the anticipated length and monotony of
completing multiple questionnaires in one sitting,
participants were then asked to complete the
NSPS and SCBI in a separate session 2 days after
Session 1. All measures in both sessions were
presented in a randomly counterbalanced order.
Our experience from administering the questionnaires to Group 1 indicated that all measures could be
completed in a reasonable amount of time without
imposing unrealistic demands on the participants.
Thus, participants in Group 2 completed all of the
counterbalanced measuresBDI-II, LSAS-SR, OCISV, SPS, SIAS, NSPS, and SCBIin one session. One
week prior to this session, we also asked participants
to complete the NSPS (but none of the other measures)
to enable us to evaluate its test-retest reliability.
Preliminary item-by-item frequency analyses for
each measure administered in the study indicated
that the total proportion of missing data was low
(0% to 2% for the vast majority of items) across all
measures and participants in both groups. Thus,
missing data were imputed for all measures using
the expectation-maximization (EM) estimation
method in SPSS Statistics 18.0 (2009). Using an
iterative process, the EM method estimates the
means, the covariance matrix, and the correlation
of quantitative (scale) variables of missing values.
When imputing these missing values, we included
only the measures that were used in each relevant
analysis described below.

results
Descriptive Analyses
Demographic information (reported age, gender,
and ethnicity) for participants in Groups 1 and 2
are presented in Table 1. A MANOVA with gender
as the grouping variable was conducted for Groups
1 and 2. There were no significant effects of gender
on any of the measures, F(6, 218) = 1.67, p N .05, for

Table 1
Demographic Characteristics of Participants

Age (N = 220 for Group 1; 277 for Group 2)

Gender (% female) (N = 225 for Group 1; 281 for Group 2)
Ethnicity (N=224 for Group 1; 276 for Group 2)
Caucasian
Asian
East Indian
Middle Eastern
Other

Group 1

Group 2

19.9 years (SD = 3.35)

72.9%

20.6 years (SD = 3.74)

68.3%

45.5%
29.9%
12.9%
3.6%
8.0%

47.8%
32.6%
4.3%
4.3%
10.9%

Note. Due to some missing data that could not be imputed, Ns vary for Groups 1 and 2.

negative self-portrayal scale

187

Table 2
Internal Consistency, Means and (Standard Deviations) of Study Measures
Measure

NSPS
SCBI
SPS
SIAS
LSAS-SR-F
LSAS-SR-A
BDI-II
OCI-SV

Group 1

Group 2

Cronbach's

Mean (SD) 1

Cronbach's

Mean (SD) 1

0.96 2
0.96
0.93
0.93
0.93
0.91
0.93
0.89

57.95 (21.61)
101.64 (23.30)
20.07 (14.74)
29.71 (16.15)
25.41 (12.51)
23.76 (12.93)
11.52 (9.74)
16.64 (10.82)

0.96 2
0.95
0.95
0.90
0.92
0.90
0.93
0.89

60.89 (23.30)
99.21 (22.65)
20.29 (15.88)
31.50 (14.16)
26.06 (11.96)
23.35 (12.13)
11.47 (9.54)
15.90 (10.73)

Note. Ns = 225 (Group1) and 316 (Group 2). NSPS = Negative Self-Portrayal Scale; SCBI = Self-Concealment Behaviors Inventory;
SPS = Social Phobia Scale; SIAS = Social Interaction Anxiety Scale; LSAS-SR-F = Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Self Report Version Fear Subscale; LSAS-SR-A= Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Self Report Version - Avoidance Subscale; BDI-II = Beck Depression
Inventory II; OCI-SV = Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Short Version.
1
Based on 27-item NSPS.
2
Despite the high internal consistency values, the highest correlation between any two of the retained NSPS items across both samples
was r = .80, suggesting non-redundancy between the items.

Group 1, and F(6, 274) = .972, p N .05, for Group 2.

A MANOVA with ethnicity (Caucasian, Asian,
East Indian, Middle Eastern, and Other) as the
grouping variable was conducted on the SIAS, SPS,
LSAS-F, LSAS-A, NSPS, and SCBI scores for
Groups 1 and 2. The results indicated no significant
effects of ethnicity on any of the measures, F
(36,933) = 1.15, p N .05, for Group 1, and F(36,
1162) = 1.36, p N .05, for Group 2.2 Mean scores,
standard deviations, and Cronbach's alphas for each
measure in Groups 1 and 2 are presented in Table 2.
Scale Item Characteristics and Factor Analysis
Group 1 scale item characteristics and exploratory
factor analysis. EFA with maximum likelihood
extraction was used to examine the underlying
structure of the NSPS in the first group of
participants. As the hypothesized factors of the
NSPS were expected to correlate with each other
(Moscovitch, 2009), the NSPS items were subjected
to analysis using an oblique (promax) rotation.
Items were removed that were cross-loading or
unreliable, in accordance with Comrey and Lee's
(1992) recommendations for factor analyses involving multiple subscales. All retained items with
factor loadings of N.45 on a single factor and b.32
on any other factor were retained, with the
exception of the one blushing item, which
cross-loaded onto two factors but was retained
because of its clinical relevance in socially anxious
2
Independent-sample t-tests were also conducted to compare
scores across measures for the primary ethnic groups (Caucasian
vs. Asian). Results in both Groups indicated that relative to
Caucasians, Asian participants reported higher scores on the SIAS
(ts N 2.10, ps b .05), and NSPS (ts N 2.15, ps b .05 ). There were no
other significant differences.

populations (e.g., Bgels & Reith, 1999; Gerlach,

Wilhelm, Gruber, & Roth, 2001). Following this
process, 27 items remained, all of which had
corrected item-total correlations greater than or
equal to .43. An inspection of all eigenvalues
greater than 1, as well as the scree plot, indicated
that a three-factor solution provided the best fit.
The three factors accounted for 55.1% of the total
variance. Interpreting the factor loadings, we
labeled the first factor, which accounted for
45.4% of the variance, concerns about social
competence. The second factor, accounting for
5.6% of the variance, was labeled concerns about
physical appearance. Finally, the third factor
accounted for 4.1% of the variance and was labeled
concerns about showing signs of anxiety. Table 3
presents the rotated factor loadings from the EFA
pattern matrix for each of the 27 NSPS items that
were retained in the first group of participants
(please also see the notes below Table 3 for the
NSPS respondent instructions).
Group 2 scale item characteristics and confirmatory factor analysis. As indicated above, the one
blushing item included in the measure for participants in Group 1 did not load cleanly onto one
factor, but instead cross-loaded onto both concerns
about social competence (.29) and concerns about
showings signs of anxiety (.24). This finding was
consistent with those of Schultz and colleagues
(2006), who, in their recent psychometric study of
the Appraisal of Social Concerns Scale (ASC),
reported that the one ASC blushing item was
discarded because it cross-loaded both onto a factor
related to social competence and a factor related to
social anxiety. We chose to retain the blushing item

188

moscovitch & huyder

Table 3
Rotated Factor Loadings from Pattern Matrix for Non-Discarded Items of the Negative Self-Portrayal Scale for Group 1
Item

Social Competence
21. Socially awkward
24. Lacking social skills
12. Lacking personality
10. Interpersonally ineffective
14. Unable to express myself
18. Reserved
17. Humorless
23. Speaking incoherently
20. Stupid
19. Aloof
3. Boring
Physical Appearance
27. Ugly
5. Physically unattractive
11. Weird-looking
13. Fat
26. Unfashionable
9. Blemished (i.e., my appearance)
22. Having a bad hair day
2. Poorly dressed
Signs of Anxiety
8. Speaking with a trembling voice
25. Fidgeting
1. Stuttering
15. Twitching (i.e., my facial muscles)
16. Frozen
6. Losing control of my emotions
4. Sweating
7. Blushing

Social Competence

Physical Appearance

Signs of Anxiety

Communalities

1.00
.95
.76
.74
.72
.66
.63
.56
.55
.53
.50

-.07
-.04
.18
.03
-.08
-.02
.08
.09
.24
.13
.13

-.11
-.09
-.08
.09
.13
-.06
.12
.20
-.04
.04
.09

.77
.75
.71
.67
.58
.37
.60
.63
.51
.43
.44

-.01
-.03
.07
-.10
.17
.08
.00
.07

.97
.93
.80
.72
.66
.64
.58
.46

-.12
-.10
.02
.07
-.01
.05
.19
.14

.80
.73
.75
.47
.61
.53
.51
.38

-.02
-.05
-.16
.10
.32
.16
.04
.29

-.02
.02
.01
-.06
.01
.09
.07
-.05

.82
.79
.73
.64
.51
.50
.49
.24

.62
.58
.41
.46
.59
.46
.32
.21
55.11%

Note. NSPS instructions to respondents read: Using the scale provided above the following list of items, please select the circle under the
appropriate number/statement to indicate the degree to which you are concerned about the following aspects of yourself when you are in
anxiety-provoking social situations (e.g. talking to someone who is a stranger; giving a speech in front of an audience; answering a
question in class; etc.). For each item, respondents are asked to consider the following statement: In social situations (in which I feel
anxious), it will become obvious to other people that I am ____. Response options per item range from 1-5, with descriptive anchors
including not at all concerned, slightly concerned, moderately concerned, very concerned, and extremely concerned. The NSPS total
score is a sum score of all items. Each subscale can also be summed separately to obtain data on the relative strength of self-portrayal
concerns across dimensions within individuals and across individuals within a larger sample.

because of its clinical relevance for socially anxious

individuals and our overarching theoretical model
(i.e., Moscovitch, 2009). In order to explore
whether blushing might represent a separate fourth
factor, three new blushing items were constructed
(i.e., becoming red in the face, becoming hot in the
face, and becoming flushed) and added to the NSPS
(resulting in a 30-item measure), which we administered to participants in Group 2.
CFA was used to analyze this 30-item NSPS
scale for participants in Group 2 using Amos
17.0 (a structural equation modeling program;
Arbuckle, 2008). Missing data were handled with
the full information maximum likelihood method
(Anderson, 1957), as implemented in Amos. The
data met the criteria for univariate and multi-

variate normality suggested by Kline (1998) and

West, Finch, and Curran (1995); for example,
values for univariate skew were all less than
|1.57| and values for univariate kurtosis were all
less than |1.61|.
A 4-factor model was evaluated with CFA, which
included the 3-factor structure from Group 1 and a
separate fourth factor containing the four blushing
items. This model was evaluated and fit moderately
well, 2 (399) = 1579.83, p b .001; comparative fit
index (CFI) = .846; root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .097; probability of close
fit (pclose) = .000. However, the four blushing items
were highly correlated with each other (r = .76-.88)
and deemed redundant; thus, only the one blushing
item was retained.

negative self-portrayal scale

CFA was then conducted to test the original
Moscovitch (2009) 4-factor model with the
remaining 27 NSPS items. The model demonstrated
good fit, 2(318) = 948.52, p b .001; CFI = .898;
RMSEA = .079; pclose = .000. However, two of the
factorsconcerns about social skills and behaviors
and concerns about personalitywere highly corre-

189

lated (r = .96), indicating that they were not distinct

factors and would be more accurately represented
as one factor (concerns about social competence).
Thus, a new model was evaluated via CFA,
consisting of 27 items loading onto the three factors
found in Group 1. The one blushing item was
constrained to load onto the concerns about signs of

FIGURE 1 Confirmatory factor analysis of the NSPS 3-factor model for Group 2. Items are labelled with I = item and
the corresponding number from the NSPS items shown in Table 3. All factor loadings had a p-value b .001 (2-tailed).

190

moscovitch & huyder

anxiety factor. This 3-factor model fit well, 2(321) =

974.58, p b .001; CFI = .895; RMSEA = .080;
pclose = .000, and is illustrated in Fig. 1 with
standardized estimates. The three factors are
labeled: (a) Social Competence, (b) Physical Appearance, and (c) Signs of Anxiety. Each item of the
scale is identified by number, according to the 27item measure presented in Table 3.
Finally, for comparative purposes, an alternative
3-factor model was tested via CFA, consisting of
27 items loading onto the three factors found in
Group 1 and the one blushing item constrained
to load onto the social competence factor. This
model did not fit as well, 2 (321) = 1018.27,
p b .001; CFI = .888; RMSEA = .083; pclose = .000.
The significance of the difference in model fit
between this model and the one displayed in Fig. 1
could not be tested because they are not nested
models. However, the Browne-Cudeck Criterion
(BCC) and expected cross-validation index (ECVI)
values were inspected for each of these models,
with smaller values indicating better model fit
(Wicherts & Dolan, 2004). Relative to the 3-factor
model with blushing loading onto the social
competence factor, the 3-factor model with blushing loading on the signs of anxiety factor
(displayed in Fig. 1) demonstrated lower BCC
(1158.97 vs. 1202.66) and ECVI (3.63 vs. 3.77)
values and was, therefore, retained.
Intercorrelations between the three NSPS factors
modeled in Fig. 1 (social competence, signs of anxiety,
and physical appearance) are reported in Table 4.
Internal Consistency and Test-Retest Reliability
The NSPS demonstrated excellent internal consistency. Cronbach's alphas for the 27-item NSPS in
Groups 1 and 2 were both .96. Each factor also
demonstrated strong internal consistency, with
Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the social competence, physical appearance, and signs of anxiety
factors, respectively, of .93 (n = 225), .91 (n = 225),
and .85 (n = 225) in Group 1, and .94 (n = 316), .93
(n = 316), and .88 (n = 316) in Group 2.
Table 4
Intercorrelations Between the Factors of the Negative Self-Portrayal
Scale

Note. Ns = 225 (Group 1) and 316 (Group 2). Group 1 correlations

are in the gray-shaded region.
*p b .001 (2-tailed).

Though not measured in Group 1, the test-retest

reliability of the 27-item NSPS in Group 2 was
satisfactory (r = .75; n = 316) over a 1-week interval.
The SCBI also demonstrated excellent internal
consistency. Cronbach's alphas for the 53-item
SCBI in Groups 1 and 2, respectively, were .96
(n = 225) and .95 (n = 316).
Convergent and Discriminant Validity
As depicted in Table 5, NSPS total scores for
Groups 1 and 2 demonstrated significantly higher
zero-order correlations with measures of social
anxiety, including LSAS-SR-F, LSAS-SR-A, SPS,
and SIAS scores (r = .63.73) than with measures of
theoretically distinct constructs such as OCD
(r = .40.47) (p-values b.01; n = 225 and 316).
Although the NSPS in Group 2 was significantly
more strongly correlated with measures of social
anxiety than with the theoretically distinct construct
of depression, as measured by BDI-II depression
scores (r = .53) (pdifference b .001; n = 316), the NSPS
in Group 1 was not more strongly correlated with
other measures of social anxiety than with the BDIII (r = .65) (pdifference N .05; n = 225).
For Groups 1 and 2, the 53-item version of the SCBI
total score demonstrated significantly higher zeroorder correlations with measures of social anxiety,
including LSAS-SR-F, LSAS-SR-A, SPS, and SIAS
scores (r =.71.77) than with measures of theoretically distinct constructs, including both the OCI-SV
(r = .43-.45) (pdifference b .001; n = 225 and 316) and
BDI-II (r = .50-.61) (pdifference b .05; n = 225 and 316).
Construct Validity
Moscovitch (2009) theorized that self-portrayal
concerns and self-concealment (i.e., safety) behaviors are functionally related to one another, such
that self-concealment is used in a strategic manner
by socially anxious individuals to prevent others
from observing their negative self-attributes in
social situations. We were, therefore, interested in
examining the hypothesis that the NSPS would be a
useful measure that would help account for the
wide-ranging use of self-concealment behaviors,
over and above established symptom measures of
social anxiety and depression. Thus, we predicted
that self-concerns (even in the unselected samples in
the present study) would account for a significant
amount of variance in self-concealment behaviors
over and above the influence of symptoms of social
interaction anxiety, social performance anxiety, and
depression. To this end, we conducted a hierarchical
multiple regression analysis with SCBI scores as the
criterion variable and four predictor variables
(SIAS, SPS, BDI-II, and NSPS scores) entered in
four separate steps. Tolerance values were

191

negative self-portrayal scale

Table 5
Zero-Order Correlations Between the NSPS Total Score, NSPS Subscales, SCBI, and Other Self-Report Measures
Measures
SCBI
Group 1
Group 2
SPS
Group 1
Group 2
SIAS
Group 1
Group 2
LSAS-SR-F
Group 1
Group 2
LSAS-SR-A
Group 1
Group 2
BDI-II
Group 1
Group 2
OCI-SV
Group 1
Group 2

NSPS
Total

NSPS Social
Competence

NSPS Physical
Appearance

NSPS Signs
of Anxiety

SCBI

.77
.73

.73
.72

.62
.58

.72
.64

.69
.73

.65
.67

.58
.62

.64
.68

.77
.76

.69
.71

.71
.73

.55
.55

.58
.61

.71
.75

.68
.67

.66
.68

.56
.52

.60
.59

.76
.76

.63
.65

.62
.66

.52
.51

.57
.56

.75
.75

.65
.53

.60
.50

.54
.45

.58
.48

.61
.50

.47
.40

.44
.37

.33
.35

.49
.37

.45
.43

Note. Ns = 225 (Group 1) and 316 (Group 2). NSPS = Negative Self-Portrayal Scale; SCBI = Self-Concealment Behaviors Inventory;
SPS = Social Phobia Scale; SIAS = Social Interaction Anxiety Scale; LSAS-SR-F = Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Self Report Version Fear Subscale; LSAS-SR-A= Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Self Report Version - Avoidance Subscale; BDI-II = Beck Depression
Inventory II; OCI-SV = Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Short Version.
All correlations for Groups 1 and 2 are based on the 27-item NSPS.
p b .001 (2-tailed).

Table 6
Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting Levels of Social Self-Concealment on the SCBI
Predictor

Step 1
SIAS
Step 2
SIAS
SPS
Step 3
SIAS
SPS
BDI
Step 4
SIAS
SPS
BDI
NSPS

SE B

Group 1

Group 2

Group 1

Group 2

Group 1

Group 2

1.04

1.02

0.07

0.05

0.72

0.75

0.44
0.83

0.57
0.63

0.10
0.10

0.07
0.07

0.31
0.53

0.42
0.45

0.41
0.65
0.55

0.55
0.59
0.16

0.09
0.11
0.12

0.07
0.08
0.10

0.28
0.41
0.23

0.41
0.42
0.07

0.22
0.54
0.25
0.39

0.44
0.46
0.08
0.24

0.09
0.10
0.12
0.06

0.07
0.08
0.09
0.05

0.15
0.34
0.10
0.36

0.32
0.32
0.03
0.24

Note. SIAS = Social Interaction Anxiety Scale; SPS = Social Phobia Scale; BDI-II = Beck Depression Inventory II; NSPS = Negative SelfPortrayal Scale; SCBI = Self-Concealment Behaviors Inventory.
Group 1: N = 225; R2 = .516 for Step 1 (p b .001); R2change = .108 for Step 2 (p b .001); R2change = .035 for Step 3 (p b .001); R2change = .050 for
Step 4 (p b .001).
Group 2: N = 316; R2 = .565 for Step 1 (p b .001); R2change = .087 for Step 2 (p b .001); R2change = .003 for Step 3 (p N .05); R2change = .024 for
Step 4 (p b .001).
p b .05.
p b .001.

192

moscovitch & huyder

examined prior to this analysis to assess for the

potential impact of multicolinearity and were found
to be no less than .33 for all predictor variables,
which is well above the minimum criteria of .10
(Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003).
SIAS scores were entered in step 1, SPS scores in
Step 2, BDI-II scores in Step 3, and NSPS total
scores in Step 4. The total Ns were 225 and 316 for
Groups 1 and 2, respectively. As shown in Table 6,
social interaction anxiety, social performance anxiety, and depression symptoms each accounted
significantly and uniquely for variance in SCBI
scores in Steps 1, 2 and 3 for Group 1. For Group 2,
only social interaction and performance anxiety
(but not depression symptoms) accounted significantly and uniquely for variance in SCBI scores.
Importantly, for both Groups 1 and 2, the addition
of NSPS scores to the regression equation in Step 4
accounted for a significant proportion (2.4%
5.0%) of the variance (in the use of self-concealment behaviors over and above the contributions of
SIAS, SPS and BDI-II scores).3

Discussion
The results of the present study suggest that the
NSPS is a psychometrically strong and potentially
useful instrument for measuring concerns that
individuals have about exposing specific negative
self-attributes to critical others in anxiety-provoking social situations. The NSPS represents a novel
assessment tool in the social anxiety field that goes
beyond measuring the level or types of social

3
We also analyzed the psychometric properties of the NSPS for
the Caucasian (n = 102 in Group 1; n = 132 in Group 2) and Asian
(n = 67 in Group 1; n = 90 in Group 2) groups separately:

(1) NSPS total score internal consistency: Group 1 (Caucasians =

.96; Asians = .95) and Group 2 (Caucasians = .95; Asians =
.97).
(2) NSPS internal consistency for the 3 factors: Group 1
(Caucasians = .93 SocCom, .91 PhyApp, .86 SigAnx.;
Asians = .93 SC, .92 PA, .84 SA) and Group 2 (Caucasians =
.93 SC, .94 PA, .84 SA; Asians = .95 SC, .94 PA, .91 SA).
(3) NSPS test-retest reliability: Group 2 (Caucasians = .74;
Asians = .75).
(4) SCBI internal consistency: Group 1 (Caucasians = .96;
Asians = .95) and Group 2 (Caucasians = .95; Asians = .96).
(5) NSPS convergent/discriminant and construct validity: Space
limitations prevent us from reproducing the correlational
matrices and regression results here, which were conducted
for the Caucasian and Asian groups separately across both
samples. The overall pattern of results between the groups
was similar. Any differences that emerged between ethnic
groups were not found consistently across the two samples
and may have been affected by sample size considerations,
making these post-hoc analyses difficult to interpret. The full
set of results is available by request from the first author.

anxiety symptoms respondents experience across

different situations. It enables the specific assessment of the core negative features of the self that are
thought to underlie self-presentational concerns
that drive social anxiety (e.g., Leary & Kowalski,
1995; Stopa, 2009a) and to account for observed
heterogeneity in situational fears, avoidance, and
self-concealment behaviors amongst socially anxious individuals (Moscovitch, 2009). Moreover, the
development of this measure represents a crucial
first step in the process of testing Moscovitch's
model of social anxiety.
Empirical evidence obtained across two independent undergraduate samples in the present study
indicated that NSPS items developed to tap
concerns about social skills and concerns about
personality loaded jointly onto a single factor,
which we labeled concerns about social competence. Whereas psychologists might distinguish
between social skills and behaviors, on one hand,
and personality, on the other, it is likely that NSPS
respondents simply considered social skill/behaviors to be observable indices of personality. Thus,
respondents may be indicating that concerns about
appearing socially awkward or speaking incoherently (both originally social skills/behaviors
items) have the same negative social impact as
appearing aloof or boring (both originally
personality items); in other words, exhibiting flaws
in social skills/behaviors or flaws in personality
leads essentially to the same concern: appearing
socially incompetent.
Alongside concerns about social competence and
in support of Moscovitch's (2009) theory, concerns
about signs of anxiety and concerns about physical
appearance emerged as separate (nonorthogonal)
factors in the EFA. This 3-factor solution was
associated with good model fit in the subsequent
CFA. It was surprising that the blushing item crossloaded relatively weakly onto both the signs of
anxiety and social competence factors in the EFA,
but we chose to retain the blushing item for the CFA
due to its empirically supported relevance in social
anxiety research and practice. In the subsequent
CFA, we found reasonably strong model fit when
we constrained the blushing item to load only onto
the signs of anxiety factor. Future research is
needed to replicate this finding.
While the observed factors of the NSPS across
both groups in the present study did not map
perfectly onto the predicted dimensions, the
emergent factor structure of the NSPS appears to
be valid, reliable, fairly stable over a 1-week
period, and conceptually sound. A test-retest
correlation of .75 is consistent with our expectations that the NSPS reflects relatively stable

negative self-portrayal scale

concerns about self-attributes that ought not to
change significantly over short time intervals in the
absence of treatment.
The new measure demonstrated adequate concurrent validity across both samples and explained
significant variance in the use of self-concealment
behaviors over and above that accounted for by
social interaction anxiety, social performance
anxiety, and depression symptoms. Although we
hypothesized that the NSPS would correlate more
strongly with measures of social anxiety than with
measures of depression, the observed correlations
in our study between the NSPS and measures of
both social anxiety and depression were quite
robust. A possible reason for this finding is that the
NSPS and BDI-II capture overlapping components
of the self-critical cognitive style that is characteristic ofand may serve as a common cognitive
diathesis underlyingboth syndromes (see
Ingram, Ramel, Chavira, & Scher, 2005). Indeed,
previous research has highlighted the central role
of negative self-related cognitions in the phenomenology of both social anxiety and depression (e.g.,
Dozois & Frewen, 2006; Moscovitch, Hofmann,
Suvak, & In-Albon, 2005). Another possibility is
that the NSPS might have good discriminant
validity in relation to some measures (e.g., OCISV) but poor discriminant validity in relation to
others (e.g., BDI-II). More research is required to
better understand the unique cognitive features of
social anxiety and depression and whether the
NSPS is capable of distinguishing between them.
The present study was not without its limitations.
Notwithstanding the recent publication of the
Subtle Avoidance Frequency Examination (SAFE;
Cuming, Rapee, Kemp, Abbott, Peters, & Gaston,
2009), no validated, published measure of safety
behaviors existed when our data were collected;
thus, we adapted the SCBI from a previously
unpublished measure of safety behaviors and used
it as our measure of self-concealment behaviors in
the present study. Our results suggested that the
SCBI is a valid and reliable measure, with high
Cronbach's alphas across both samples and adequate convergent and discriminant validity. We
assessed the discriminant validity of the NSPS in
relation to the BDI-II and the OCI-SV, but it will be
important in future studies to determine how the
NSPS correlates with measures of constructsfor
example, worry, panic, or higher-order dimensions
(e.g., Brown & Barlow, 2009)that might be even
more similar to social anxiety both conceptually
and clinically than depression or OCD per se. Since
all questionnaires were administered online, it is
possible that participants felt less accountable to
answer questions as carefully as participants who

193

complete pencil-and-paper measures in the laboratory might feel. Consequently, although previous
studies comparing online and paper administrations of questionnaires have shown that online
measures are highly reliable (e.g., Luce, Winzelberg,
Das, Osborne, Bryson, & Taylor, 2007), it would
be prudent to replicate our study with paper
questionnaires. In addition, our use of multiple
sessions for completion of the study measures may
have introduced additional variability into the
study associated with participants fluctuating
circumstances and moods across testing sessions.
Furthermore, despite the wide range of reported
symptoms of anxiety and depression in our study,
the overall mean levels of these symptoms were
quite low; thus, it is impossible to know whether
and how the NSPS findings reported here would
generalize from the present participants to clinical
samples. Moreover, because our unselected samples
of participants were comprised predominantly of
young, female, university-educated, and socioeconomically advantaged individuals, we cannot infer
that the results would generalize to samples of
individuals with different compositions of demographic characteristics.
As highlighted by some of the reported differences between Asian and Caucasian participants in
the present study, it is crucial to note that, because
individuals self-portrayal concerns depend on the
standards and norms for social behavior and
because such standards and norms vary considerably across cultures (e.g., Markus & Kitayama,
1991), it is likely that the NSPS is a culturally bound
measure. Thus, whereas the values of one culture
might dictate that its members make humorous
remarks or witty conversation during social gatherings in order to appear socially competent, the
values of another culture might dictate that social
competence is reflected in one's ability to remain
silent during social gatherings, constrain the desire
to speak out, and practice listening respectfully to
the elders of the community. In other words, what
might appear socially incompetent according to the
norms of one society might appear quite competent
according to the norms of another. Similarly, there
are, no doubt, variations across cultures in standards of physical appearance and norms associated
with showing signs of anxiety, which in turn would
dictate cross-cultural differences in the relevance of
and responses to the present version of the NSPS.
Therefore, it would be both interesting and
important to examine the cross-cultural applicability of the NSPS in future research.
Although replication of our results is clearly
required in both clinical samples of SAD patients
and community samples of healthy and anxious

194

moscovitch & huyder

control participants (an endeavor that is currently

in progress in our laboratory), the preliminary
validation of the NSPS enables us to envision its
future use as a clinical tool to guide the assessment
and treatment of SAD. We hypothesize that clinical
outcomes in SAD will be improved by practitioners assessment of the nature of their patients
self-portrayal concerns and the subsequent selection of specific interventions to target those
concerns across the dimensions of the NSPS. It
might be worthwhile to remain attuned to the
potentially useful distinction between concerns
about social skills/behaviors and concerns about
personality in the context of SAD, even though this
distinction is not captured in the factor structure of
the NSPS. In our clinical experience, concerns
about social skills/behaviors that are endorsed by
patients with SAD tend to be most responsive to
interventions such as video feedback (e.g., Harvey,
Clark, Ehlers, & Rapee, 2000; McManus et al.,
2009) and similar types of behavioral experiments
(Bennett-Levy et al., 2004) that are designed to
improve the self-other discrepancy in imagined
behavioral deficits (e.g., Rodebaugh & Rapee,
2006). Conversely, concerns about signs of anxiety
or personality flaws in the context of SAD may be
more resistant to change with video feedback (see
Orr & Moscovitch, 2010b; Stopa, 2009b) and,
therefore, might require therapeutic intervention
with a different set of intervention strategies.
Finally, we are currently working on adapting the
current version of the NSPS to investigate in future
studies not only how concerned socially anxious
individuals are about publicly exposing feared
negative self-attributes, but also how much they
might overestimate the probability and social costs
associated with revealing each self-attribute to
critical others. We hope to track how such
probability and cost estimates might differ across
the NSPS dimensions and change as a result of
treatment.
In closing, the preliminary validation of the NSPS
enables us to renew our call for a paradigm shift in
treating SAD (e.g., Moscovitch, 2009). Traditional
conceptualizations of exposure-based CBT for SAD
(e.g., Heimberg, 2009) are guided by a therapeutic
mindset that is characterized by the question:
What types of feared social situations must be
confronted in the service of anxiety reduction?
Confronting social situations is indeed necessary in
the treatment of social anxiety, but it is not
sufficient. We hypothesize that the extinction of
learned fear in patients with SAD vis--vis the
principles of emotional processing theory (Foa &
Kozak, 1986; Foa & McNally, 1996; see also
Moscovitch, Antony, & Swinson, 2009) will be

more effectively facilitated with both an a priori

exploration of patients self-portrayal concerns and
an overarching therapeutic mindset that is guided
by the following question: What about the self
does this patient perceive as being flawed, and how
can new learning about the self be promoted most
effectively during therapy in the service of anxiety
reduction? Future research is required to support
this testable prediction.
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R E C E I V E D : August 31, 2009
A C C E P T E D : April 27, 2010
Available online 16 December 2010