ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Performance Science
This article is part of the Research TopicMusic Performance Anxiety - Volume IIView all 27 articles
Digital Age Triggers: The Role of Social Media Evaluation in Music Performance Anxiety
Provisionally accepted
- 1New Era University, Quezon City, Philippines
- 2Inje University, Gimhae-si, Republic of Korea
- 3Guangxi University, Nanning, China
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This study investigates the mechanisms underlying music performance anxiety (MPA) under conditions of digital visibility, focusing on how digital performance exposure and online evaluation anxiety jointly influence MPA, and how perfectionism and self-compassion moderate these processes. Grounded in social comparison and self-regulation frameworks, structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized pathways among these variables. Results show that digital exposure significantly heightens online evaluation anxiety, which in turn predicts greater MPA, demonstrating a significant mediating pathway. Perfectionism strengthens the association between digital exposure and evaluation anxiety, whereas self-compassion buffers the link between evaluation anxiety and MPA. Multi-group analyses indicate that these structural relations vary by gender and professional identity: female and professional performers report higher sensitivity to evaluative feedback and stronger anxiety responses. These findings suggest that digital visibility broadens the social arena of musical performance while influencing performers' emotional dynamics. Promoting self-compassion and resilience may support emotional balance and adaptive functioning in increasingly evaluative digital environments.
Keywords: digital performance exposure, emotional regulation, music performance anxiety, online evaluation anxiety, perfectionism, self-compassion, social comparison
Received: 08 Nov 2025; Accepted: 03 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Ma, Lu and Luo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chengdi Luo
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