Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Tracy L. Morris.

Abstract

Previous research has found that parental control predicts social anxiety and is moderated by parental proximity, as measured by the amount of contact one has with their parent; however there have been no studies examining how levels of parental proximity may change over the course of a young adult's life. The purpose of the current study was to examine how variables previously associated with social anxiety change across a semester of college. The current study examined parental proximity, autonomy, social support and social anxiety at three points across the semester. Thirty-nine undergraduate students at West Virginia University participated in the study. It was hypothesized that as the semester progressed, reported levels of parental proximity would decrease, while autonomy and social support would increase as students assimilated more into the college community. To evaluate these hypotheses, a repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted. While results were in the predicted direction, there were no significant findings. As past research has found that levels of social anxiety were higher for those who maintained close proximity to their parents and whose parents were more controlling, it was hypothesized that the same would hold true for the current study. To test this hypothesis, a univariate analysis of variance was conducted; however, the results were not significant nor in the predicted direction. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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