He argued that we quickly learn that the social rewards and punishments (for example, in the form of approval and disapproval) that we receive from other people are based on their evaluations of us.
For example, a person who is trying out for cheerleading will feel a heightened sense of arousal leading to incompetence not just because others are around, but because of the fear that others are observing and ridiculing them.
[1] People may experience evaluation apprehension when they are part of a negatively stereotyped group and involved in a stereotype-linked activity.
Evaluation apprehension can affect subjects' behavior in psychological experiments, and can lead to invalid causal inference.
This response set is important for personality researchers because it threatens valid interpretation of test results.
By creating differing levels of evaluation apprehension, researchers can assess its effect on, and interaction with, other variables, such as self-esteem and manifest anxiety.
Leary et al. thus hoped to create conditions that tested the effects of differing levels of evaluation apprehension on social-esteem and self-esteem.
[8] Therefore, the researchers conducted an experiment that tested the relationship between collectivism and corruption with the independent variable being evaluation apprehension.
Both experiments produced significant results which indicate that collectivism only facilitated corruption when there was low evaluation apprehension.
[9] Their behavior may be altered from the norm by increasing evaluation apprehension even if the rest of the context remains unchanged.
Evaluation apprehension can change behavior both beneficially and detrimentally in laboratory and work settings.
[9] Recent research has suggested that at times the true effects of a treatment being tested in an experiment can be influenced by evaluation apprehension.
[9] Their apprehensive feelings of being evaluated results in them acting in a different manner than they would in normal life, thereby leading to false data.
[5] Research indicates that evaluation apprehension is a primary determinant of individual differences in the ability to make positive self-evaluations among Western and Eastern cultures.
The individualistic nature of those cultures encourages people who reside in them to make public, positive self-evaluations because of a lack of social/societal judgment when they do.
Studies have revealed that when these people are in a more private setting where they do not have evaluation apprehension they are more likely to make positive self-evaluations.