EFFECTS OF SELF-CONCEPT, BODY DISSATISFACTION AND GENDER ON STUDENT'S FEAR OF NEGATIVE EVALUATION IN ANAMBRA STATE

The study examined the effect of self-concept, body dissatisfaction and gender on students’ fear of negative evaluation. A sample of 420 university students, including males (n = 200,) and females (n = 220), from Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University were used for the study. The samples were collected through purposive sampling technique. The students were randomly drawn from three departments out of 6 from the Faculty of Social Sciences namely psychology, mass communication and political science. 120 students were selected from psychology department, 140 from political science while 140 students were selected from mass communication department. Their age ranged from 17 years to 25 years with a mean age of 21.0. Index of self Esteem developed by Hudson (1982), Body Dissatisfaction Assessment Questionnaire and Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation were the three instruments used in this study. The study was a cross- sectional survey with six groups (self-concept: high and low, gender: male and female, body dissatisfaction: high and low. Analysis of variance ANOVA with unequal sample size was used for data analysis. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, IBM SPSS version 26 and significance was accepted at P <.05. The result indicated a significant mean difference between undergraduates that had high self-concept and those that had low concept. The second hypothesis was also accepted indicating that those that had high body dissatisfaction experienced fear of negative evaluation than those with low body dissatisfaction. Finally, gender did not have any effect on fear of negative evaluation. The findings were discussed and it was recommended that every university should establish a psychological service center to offer psychotherapy and psychoeducation to the university community.