The renowned comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, was once quoted trying to elucidate people’s courage to speak to the public by comparing it with death. He recounted, “…to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” Various scholars have made attempts at shedding light upon public speaking, McDermott (2013) argues that his works have an empirical proof. He cites the report carried out by Marlina M. Davidson which showed that 62 percent of the 2,543 participants in the study identified fearing public speaking more than death (Dwyer, 2012). He adds on that this was a 21 percent increase over the Bruskin (1973) survey. The question of whether people fear public speaking more than death has received an overwhelming debate over the recent past. This question is contradictory and leaves one to wonder what else could be worse than death itself. This paper will seek to answer this question by expounding more on social anxiety issues and how it can be managed.
Ciccarelli (2017) offers a psychological definition of social anxiety as “fear of interacting with others or being in social situations that might lead to negative evaluation.” Social anxiety has also received wide recognition in communication. Pierce (2009) defines social anxiety as a case where an individual is “not comfortable talking with others in person.”
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Causes of Social Anxiety
There are numerous factors that can contribute to social anxiety from a psychological standpoint. Gilkinson (1943) suggests that social anxiety disorder is first interlinked with one or more unrelated events and eventually impact on one’s public speaking capability. According to Sills (1968), “Anxiety has variously been considered as a phenomenal state of the human organism, as a physiological syndrome, and as a theoretical construct invoked to account for defensive behavior, the avoidance of noxious stimuli, and neurotic symptoms.”
Key among the causes of social anxiety is low self-esteem. Murphy (2009) defines self-esteem as “The way you feel about yourself. A person with high self-esteem values him- or herself; a person with low self-esteem does not value him- or herself.” Self-esteem is considered as a trait of neuroticism, a criterion used to value the moods and attitudes of individuals. The self-confidence of an individual will determine whether or not they are willing to interact with others.
Second, low self-efficacy has a role to play in social anxiety. One’s willingness to interact with others goes hand in hand with the belief in themselves that they can surely do it. Self-efficacy slightly differs with self-esteem. The latter chiefly entails one’s feeling of self-worth while the former depicts one’s capacity to achieve a given task or goal.
Another cause of social anxiety is past trauma. The childhood experiences of an individual have been found to cause social anxiety. Childhood ordeals may take the form of emotional experiences, physical torments or even sexual trauma. All these forms of past trauma, if not well dealt with, can result in social anxiety.
Genetics and biological factors have been found to cause social anxiety. According to a research conducted by Hettema (2003), social phobias have been linked with the genetics of an individual. This research also established that low levels of serotonin may cause social anxiety disorder is a heritable psychiatric disorder. Serotonin is compound that acts as a neurotransmitter. Various scholarly works have shown that serotonin regulates moods and social behaviors of individuals.
There are also some very interesting learned psychological factors that can cause social anxiety. Operant conditioning is the idea that one can learn a behavior through positive or negative reinforcement, also known as reward and punishment. An individual is able to relate an act or behavior with its corresponding consequence through operant conditioning. As such, one’ social anxiety is dependent on the strength or weakness of one’s behavior. A weak behavior would imply more social anxiety and vice versa.
Managing Anxiety in Social Situations
In all aspects of life, managing social anxiety in social situations is very essential. In our daily operations, one needs to control the social anxiety that would hinder the interactions with other individuals or groups. The benefits of managing the social anxiety are evident in all aspects of our social situations, from childhood to education, work, and our daily activities. Anxiety could occupy our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors thus being disastrous (Ciccarelli, 2017).
In childhood, managing anxiety would enable one to be confident and engage other children, thus making new friends. It also enables one to borrow items and share stories with other children. This promotes one’s confidence and self-esteem, which are actually transferred to adulthood and in general life situations (Murphy, 2009). In addition, managing social anxiety in school enable one to ask and give assistance to others, as well as socializing and sharing essential information. One is also able to approach tutors with due courage and ask for assistance.
Moreover, managing social anxiety is very useful in workplaces. For instance, it enables one to cooperate with other people and contribute to group decisions and assignments. This actually develops one’s career and confidence. It also enables one to accomplish work without fear or panic. Therefore, one could approach the management for a concern and be free to complain or give a supporting argument. Moreover, in other life situation, managing social anxiety enables one to make more friend, spouses or even business partners. In the community, one gains the courage to approach different individuals and proposing essential projects. Therefore, we need to manage our social anxiety as it could largely influence our daily lives.
The Flexibility of Social Anxiety
Social anxiety if a flexible situation and people overcome it as they age up. The anxiety is flexible as one is able to manage and control it through experience and improved confidence. Therefore, though the gained experience and competence, one’s self-esteem develops, causing the fear of being judged negatively by other people to decline. The social anxiety is also flexible on the basis that it can be eliminated by group activities (Sills, 1968). Hereby, when people perform group works, they tend to be more social than when assigned individual roles. This illustrates that the social anxiety varies depending on the conditions one is in. moreover, some people tend to be more stable while speaking to a limited number of individuals and anxious while addressing a large crowd. In addition, one’s fear and self-esteem could develop through counseling.
Coping Methods in Reducing Social Anxiety
In addition to skills training, one may apply various coping methods and mechanisms to reduce or curb the extent of the social anxiety. Various treatment methods in dealing with anxiety include cognitive modifications and systematic desensitization. Cognitive treatments influence people to change their perceptions towards anxiety and communication (Kelly, 2000). One could replace the anxiety thoughts with cool thoughts, thus eliminating social anxiety. On the other hand, the system desensitization treatment is effective in treating social anxiety. It enables one to replace the learned anxious response to the identified stimuli influencing the anxiety. Moreover, other coping methods like visiting a therapist, fear management and realistic would curb anxiety experience. In addition, self-control and practical daily deep breathing could help.
Although cited as the least effective treatment method, skills training helps in advancing one’s social skills and reduce anxiety (Kelly, 2000). Hereby, one learns the public speaking skills in a classroom. The skills training commonly aims at treading the social anxiety from a communication perspective. People are taught how to be effective public speakers, thus promoting their communication skills, confidence to speak in front of an audience and attain self-confidence. The fear of communication is thereby eliminated and the one learns to be an effective public speaker. Moreover, people learn to perform more competently thus achieving goals of social approval and confidence, thereby diminishing the anxiety levels.
Conclusion
Concisely, the research paper outlines and analyses the social anxiety occurrence. From the information and data gathered from various credible sources, it would be worth concluding that social anxiety management is essential to our daily activities and practices. The various causes of anxiety have been outlined and discussed. These causes included but not limited to self-esteem, self-efficacy, biological and genetic factors. Moreover, the sources lead to the conclusion that social anxiety is flexible and ceases as one age. Finally, the paper discusses the various mechanisms and therapies that one may apply to cope with anxiety in life. In addition, the skills training social anxiety treatment mechanism has been discussed (Kelly, 2000).
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