Copyright © The British Psychological Society Reproduction in any form (including the internet) is prohibited without prior permission from the Society Social rejection in social anxiety disorder: The role of performance deficits, evoked negative emotions and dissimilarity Marisol J. Voncken 1 *, Lynn E. Alden 2 , Susan M. Bo¨gels 3 and Jeffrey Roelofs 1 1 Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands 2 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 3 University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Objectives. Patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) not only fear social rejection, but accumulating evidence also shows that they are indeed less liked than their non-anxious counterparts. Three factors are hypothesized to play a role in this social anxiety–social rejection relationship: (1) social performance; (2) elicited negative emotions, and (3) perceived similarity. Method. Patients with SAD (N ¼ 63) and control participants (N ¼ 27) were observed during a 5 minutes ‘getting acquainted’ conversation with a male and female confederate who rated their social performance. Video-observers rated their own negative emotions and perceived similarity with the patients, while other video-observers rated their wish to engage in future contact with them (a measure of social rejection). Results. Analysed by way of structural equation modelling (SEM), the results supported the social anxiety–social rejection relationship. More specifically, poor social performance was associated with perceived dissimilarity ratings and mediated by evoked negative emotions, both of which were in turn associated with social rejection. Conclusion. These results suggest that a sequence of events links social anxiety to social rejection. Treatment should aim to improve social performance and perceived similarity to reverse SAD’s vicious, negative interpersonal cycle. A core feature of people with social anxiety disorder (SAD) is fear of negative evaluation in social interactions. Cognitive models of SAD emphasize that distorted interpretations of social interactions lead people with SAD to believe that others evaluate them negatively (Clark, 2001; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). But are these interpretations indeed inaccurate? Research suggests that socially anxious individuals in fact evoke negative responses in others. For example, they have been judged by independent raters as less * Correspondence should be addressed to Marisol J. Voncken, Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands (e-mail: M.Voncken@DEP.unimaas.nl). The British Psychological Society 439 British Journal of Clinical Psychology (2008), 47, 439–450 q 2008 The British Psychological Society www.bpsjournals.co.uk DOI:10.1348/014466508X334745