“Am I what I physically am?”: relationship between body esteem and social anxiety

The author has investigated the relationship between two variables namely, Body Esteem and Social Anxiety. The research paper focuses on the correlation between the variables mentioned as well as studies the difference between the body esteem scores of various age groups and genders. It was hypothesized that there will be a significant correlation between the body esteem and social anxiety. The sample size is 80 (Males-40, Females-40). The age group of the sample taken is 20-40 years which is divided into four sub groups. Each sub group consists of 20 subjects (Males-10, Females 10). The average age of the sample is 30.4125.  Body Esteem Scale by Franzoi and Shields (1991) and Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS-SR) by Michael Liebowitz (1987) were used to measure body esteem and social anxiety among the participants. Pearson’s correlation method has been employed to study the correlation between Body esteem and Social Anxiety which showed a correlation moderate negative correlation implying that lower is the body esteem, higher is the social anxiety and vice versa also holds true. To study the differences between the body esteem scores among various age groups, One Way ANOVA has been used. The test shows a significant difference between the body esteem scores among the various age groups ranging from 20-40. On the other hand, the difference between the body esteem scores of males and females were analysed by t-test and were found to be insignificant. The limitations and recommendations for future research have also been discussed later in the paper.