Socially
anxious adults display an interpretation bias toward anticipating
threat such as a high probability of audience criticism even in
nonthreatening social situations. They may also expect more negative
audience reactions to self than to others acknowledging anxiety. Few
studies have examined such biases in adolescents. We examined negative
and positive metaperceptions (i.e., others’ perceived responses) in
13–16-year-old adolescents (n = 
655) with high vs. normal social anxiety in a hypothetical classroom
scenario, in which the participants predicted the frequency of negative
and positive classmate responses when imagining either themselves
(self-referent metaperceptions) or a classmate (other-referent
metaperceptions) with visible symptoms of social anxiety as the target
persons giving a speech. We assessed social anxiety with the Social
Anxiety Scale for Adolescents and metaperception using the Classroom
Questionnaire of Social Anxiety and Interpersonal Cognition. Social
anxiety was associated with negative self-referent metaperceptions to a
greater degree than with negative other-referent metaperceptions.
Compared with adolescents with normal social anxiety, those with high
social anxiety (both boys and girls) predicted a broader range of
negative classmate responses toward self, as compared with their
predictions of negative responses toward a classmate. These group
differences were observed specifically with regard to audience’s
predicted covert negative responses (i.e., negative thoughts and
feelings) toward self, indicating that socially anxious adolescents tend
to mind-read. Minimal group differences in positive metaperceptions
were observed. The results reveal target and content specificity in
socially anxious adolescents’ negative metaperceptions.