"The Link Between Social Anxiety Disorder and Fear of Evaluation: Neuroscience Findings"
A neuroimaging study on college students has found that the fear of being judged, whether positively or negatively, is linked to social anxiety disorder. The study revealed specific patterns of brain activity in the front part of the brain that were associated with the intensity of this fear and social anxiety disorder. The findings suggest that both fear of negative evaluation and fear of positive evaluation independently predict social anxiety disorder symptoms, and abnormal prefrontal cortex signals influence social anxiety disorder symptoms through fears of evaluation. However, the study's limitations include a sample limited to college students and the use of a measure that only indicates the intensity of local neuronal activity.