Social interaction anxiety and personality traits predicting engagement in health risk sexual behaviors

Individuals with social interaction anxiety, a facet of social anxiety disorder, withdraw from or avoid social encounters and generally avoid risks. However, a subset engages in health risk sexual behavior (HRSB). Because sensation seeking, emotion dysregulation, and impulsivity predict engagement in HRSB among adolescents and young adults, the present study hypothesized that latent classes of social interaction anxiety and these personality traits would differentially predict likelihood of engagement in HRSB. Finite mixture modeling was used to discern four classes: two low social interaction anxiety classes distinguished by facets of emotion dysregulation, positive urgency, and negative urgency (Low SIAS High Urgency and Low SIAS Low Urgency) and two high social interaction anxiety classes distinguished by positive urgency, negative urgency, risk seeking, and facets of emotion dysregulation (High SIAS High Urgency and High SIAS Low Urgency). HRSB were entered into the model as auxiliary distal outcomes. Of importance to this study were findings that the High SIAS High Urgency class was more likely to engage in most identified HRSB than the High SIAS Low Urgency class. This study extends previous findings on the heterogeneity of social interaction anxiety by identifying the effects of social interaction anxiety and personality on engagement in HRSB.