Does the social concerns component of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index belongto the domain of anxiety sensitivity or the domain of negative evaluation sensitivity?

The present study utilized an exploratory factor-analytic approach (i.e. pr incipal-components analysis; PCA) to investigate whether the Social Concern s component of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI [Peterson, R. A., & Reiss , S. (1992). Anxiety Sensitivity Index manual (2nd ed.). Worthington, OH: I nternational Diagnostic Systems.]) is best conceptualized as belonging to t he domain of anxiety sensitivity (AS) and/or the domain of negative evaluat ion sensitivity (NES). A sample of university students (N = 216) was admini stered measures of both NES (i.e. Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation scale; Leary, 1983) and AS (i.e. ASI), Participants' responses to the items compri sing these measures were subjected to a PCA with oblique rotation. Factors representing the NES construct and the three lower-order AS constructs (i.e . AS Physical, Psychological and Social Concerns) were obtained. Subscales derived from these four factors were positively and significantly correlate d with one another and loaded on a single higher-order factor labeled Threa t Sensitivity. Thus, the present findings suggest that the AS Social Concer ns factor is distinct from NES and the other lower-order components of AS. However, correlational analyses and higher-order PCA indicated that the AS Social Concerns factor taps a blend of AS and NES as well as something uniq ue and distinct from both global AS and NES. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.