El miedo a la burla-ridiculización (gelotofobia) como obstáculo para la participación del alumnado universitario en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje

Abstract

Gelotophobia-trait is a psychological construct—closely related to social anxiety—that describes howpeople differ in the way they deal with mockery and ridicule-related situations. Individuals with highexpressions of gelotophobia show exaggerated affective reactions (intense anxiety-fear) when they areteased and tend to unfoundedly anticipate social interactions in which they are laughed at. Althoughgelotophobia has been related to poorer generalized social performance, there are few studies thathave analyzed the impact of this disposition on teaching-learning processes. Using a sample of Spanish university students, the present piece of research analyzed the relationships of gelotophobia witha series of questions related to satisfaction, participation, and peer interaction during higher educationclasses. Using multiple hierarchical regression analyses, we investigated the capacity of gelotophobiaon predicting these criteria after controlling for sociodemographic effects. According to our results, regardless of students’ age, gender, and academic year, higher levels of gelotophobia were associatedwith lower frequency of class participation, lower liking to participate in group activities (e.g., discussions with peers), lower perceived self-efficacy when presenting their work in front of the class, and, ingeneral, a lower number of friendships among their classmates. The effects observed for gelotophobiawere of moderate magnitude, explaining between 11-15% of the interpersonal variance in the abovementioned criteria. There was, however, no significant relationship between gelotophobia and students’overall satisfaction with their college career. These results suggest that gelotophobia is a more relevantattribute for predicting the social performance of college students in the classroom, rather than for accounting for their overall level of satisfaction with their chosen studies. These findings adequately converge with the conceptualization of gelotophobia and its relationship to individuals’ social functioning.Finally, possible recommendations to faculty members on how to minimize the impact of gelotophobiaon teaching-learning processes are discussed.