Is social anxiety a fear of making a negative impression?

Social anxiety - what is it? It's a good question. I have just been reading a research article on some of the latest research into social anxiety. I found the opening paragraph explaining a key feature of social anxiety to be very helpful, and thought you might like to read it.

The article is called: "Self-presentational features in childhood social anxiety". It is published in The Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Volume 24, Issue 1, January 2010, Pages 34-41.

It is written by: Robin Banerjee and and Dawn Watling, from the Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, UK and Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

You can find the article under Science Direct: http://www.sciencedirect.com

This is how the article starts:

"Social anxiety has long been associated with self-presentational concerns about how one is being perceived and evaluated by others.

Schlenker and Leary (1982) formulated the following key proposition:

Social anxiety arises in real or imagined social situations when people are motivated to make a particular impression on others but doubt that they will do so, because they have expectations of unsatisfactory impression-relevant reactions from others (p. 645).

Similarly, clinical analyses of social anxiety disorder point to anticipated and imagined negative social evaluation as a hallmark feature (e.g., Clark, 2001), and the DSM-IV (APA, 2000) explicitly focuses on the individual's fears of humiliation and embarrassment in social situations."

My comments on this feature of social anxiety:

It does help to understand what the fear behind social anxiety is, doesn't it?

In my lay-woman's words it suggests to me three things:

1. That the person with social anxiety presumes that other people are evaluating them.

2. They have a strong need to have a positive self-image in public, i.e. they want others to look upon them favourably.

3. However, they assume that this is unlikely to happen and instead, that the reactions of the other people will be negative towards them.

Thus they are anxious in social situations. I am not surprised!

This is an enormous psychological load to carry.

In a conversation I had with a close family member who has had severe social anxiety, he reinforced that this did in fact occur. He was anxious well before meeting people that he would be judged negatively. And this mattered to him deeply. He was desperate at times to leave a positive impression.

I explained that most people are more worried about themselves than they are about him and this helped put a new slant on things.

The research that Banerjee and Watling then did with a group of children aged 8-9 with social anxiety found that the children have "a durable tendency to endorse self-presentational tactics that are designed to shape their public self-image."

The authors went on to say that this "is compatible with the arguments that concerns about one's public impressions lie at the heart of social anxiety."

If you have social anxiety is this what happens to you? Tell us your experiences.

Written by Rachel Green.  Professional Speaker | Trainer | Coach | Author.

Rachel has used meditation to overcome panic attacks. She is the author of the 2 CD set: "Happy not hassled: Using meditation to manage your emotions".

Rachel also conducts a live webinar "Managing anxiety - creating calm" that you can enrol in throughout Australia. Click here for more details.

She can also speak at your conference or event on: Managing anxiety: don't panic yet!
This is an inspiring speech, hilarious, practical and relevant.

Copyright Confident Woman Australia, 2010.
NB: This article is not provided as an alternative to obtaining professional advice from an appropriately qualified practitioner.