Perceived appraisals by others, self-esteem, and anxiety

Questionnaire data from 595 male and female college students were used to test four hypotheses regarding interpersonal sources of anxiety--i.e., that high anxiety occurs as a function of (a) low subjective public-esteem (perceived negative appraisals of self by others); (b) low self-esteem; (c) discrepancies where subjective public-esteem is more negative than self-esteem; and (d) absolute discrepancies between subjective public-esteem and self-esteem, regardless of evaluative direction. The results suggested that level of self-esteem and absolute discrepancies between subjective public-esteem and self-esteem are important and relatively independent factors in anxiety.