Our research aims is to discover if the public speaking anxiety that many youngsters experience originates from specific characteristics in their earlier development. Can we predict which children and youngsters will develop public speaking anxiety and which will not, based on measures of subjectively experienced fear, cognition, self-image, perceived support from peers and adults, and behaviors and physiological reactions during the public speaking task? For this research, we use a great deal of data obtained from questionnaires and tests as well as video recordings of students during a public speaking task.

Key publications

• Blöte, A. W., Miers, A. C., Van den Bos, E., & Westenberg, P. M. (2019). The role of performance quality in adolescents’ self-evaluation and rumination after a speech: Is it contingent on social anxiety level? Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 47, 148-163. DOI: 10.1017/S1352465818000310
• Blöte, A. W., Poungjit, A., Miers, A. C., Van Beek, Y., & Westenberg, P. M. (2015). The Speech Performance Observation Scale for Youth (SPOSY): Assessing social performance characteristics related to social anxiety. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 6, 168-184. DOI:10.5127/jep.039713
• Blöte, A. W., Miers, A. C., & Westenberg, P. M. (2015). The role of social performance and physical attractiveness in peer rejection of socially anxious adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 25, 189-200. DOI: 10.1111/jora.12107
• Blöte, A. W., Miers, A. C., Heyne, D. A., Clark, D. M., & Westenberg, P. M. (2014). The relation between social anxiety and audience perception: Examining Clark and Wells' (1995) model among adolescents. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 42(5), 555-567. Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2013. DOI: 10.1017/S1352465813000271
• Blöte, A. W., Bokhorst, C. L., Miers, A. C., & Westenberg, P. M. (2012). Why are socially anxious adolescents rejected by peers? The role of subject-group similarity characteristics. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 22, 123-134. DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-7795.2011.00768.x
• Miers, A.C., Blöte, A.W., & Westenberg, P.M. (2010). Peer Perceptions of Social Skills in Socially Anxious and Nonanxious Adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38 (1), 33-41. (doi: 10.1007/s10802-009-9345-x).