The buffering role of exercise enjoyment in the associations among multidimensional psychological stressors, self-focused attention, and generalized social anxiety

Working adults are facing an escalating problem with generalized social anxiety, a public health concern that appears to be compounded by current workplace conditions, especially intense competition and heightened environmental sensitivity. External workplace stressors are known to relate to generalized social anxiety, but the underlying internal cognitive associative patterns and potential buffering factors remain poorly understood. Drawing on the cognitive model of social anxiety and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this research examined self-focused attention as a mediator and exercise enjoyment as a buffer in the association between multidimensional psychological stressors and generalized social anxiety. This study followed an exploratory-confirmatory design. Study 1 used a custom Python script to conduct Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling across 162,155 online texts. Study 2 surveyed 1,535 white-collar professionals in a cross-sectional design, and the proposed moderated mediation model was tested using the PROCESS macro (Model 4 and Model 59). Preliminary text-mining results supported the ecological validity of the proposed theoretical framework. Multidimensional psychological stressors related significantly and positively to generalized social anxiety ( b = 0.346, 95% CI [0.270, 0.422]); indirect links through self-focused attention arousal ( b = 0.081, 95% CI [0.044, 0.120]) and self-focused attention behavior ( b = 0.064, 95% CI [0.029, 0.104]) were significant as well. Exercise enjoyment exhibited a significant negative moderating role ( b = -0.179, 95% CI [-0.250, -0.108]), and at high levels of exercise enjoyment, neither arousal ( b = 0.001, 95% CI [-0.062, 0.065]) nor behavior ( b = -0.010, 95% CI [-0.076, 0.055]) remained significantly associated with generalized social anxiety. A self-focused attention link appears to statistically connect multidimensional psychological stressors with concurrent generalized social anxiety, and exercise enjoyment seems capable of buffering this internal cognitive association, particularly when physical activity is driven by intrinsic enjoyment rather than mere behavioral compliance. Consequently, workplace physical-activity interventions built around enjoyment, intrinsic motivation, and psychological resource building are recommended as a promising strategic avenue.