Background <p>Social anxiety (SA) can be conceptualized not merely as a unitary latent construct, but as an emergent property of dynamically interacting symptoms. Environmental sensitivity and negative self-attention bias are robust correlates of SA, yet their symptom-level interrelations underlying their frequent co-occurrence remain poorly understood. Understanding these associations is particularly important during late adolescence, a developmental period characterized by heightened sensitivity to social evaluation.</p> Methods <p>A total of 2717 college students (<i>M</i>_age = 19.81, 77.5% female) completed self-report measures assessing environmental sensitivity, negative self-attention bias, and SA. Psychological network analysis and Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) approaches were employed to examine symptom-level interrelations and to generate hypotheses regarding potential directional pathways.</p> Results <p>All three constructs were significantly intercorrelated. Network analysis identified fear of negative evaluation as a central symptom within the network. Key bridge symptoms linking the constructs included physiological arousal when being observed, rumination on criticism and failure, and social avoidance. DAG analysis suggested a potential cascade from environmental sensitivity to negative self-attention bias and to SA.</p> Conclusion <p>These findings indicate that environmental sensitivity, negative self-attention bias, and SA are tightly interconnected at the symptom level. By identifying both core symptoms (fear of negative evaluation) and bridge symptoms (observation-related arousal, social avoidance and rumination), this study highlights precise targets for clinical intervention and advances a more nuanced, systemic understanding of SA.</p>