The Study Anxiety Inventory

Though most people might believe that mental disorders are rare, it is actually common, and nearly 42.5 million of American adults in the United States suffer from it. A common diagnosed mental disorder are anxiety disorders. A specific type of the anxieties is social anxiety. Social anxiety is a type of specific phobia that a person has an excessive fear of social situations. A common form would be public speaking. This type of disorder has the intense nervousness and self-consciousness when being watched, and fears the feeling of being criticized. Though social anxiety is more of an internal illness, physical symptoms are shown. The physical symptoms include sweating, shaking, muscle tension, upset stomach, and excessive heart pounding. Without treatment, this type of feeling builds the fear of that individuals by distorting their thinking of false beliefs about the social situations. The negative and fearful thoughts prevail the individual’s normal daily routine, and this can lead into more fearful social situation.

Social anxiety, also known as social phobia, is a feeling of fear and discomfort of being judged badly by other people. Anyone can experience this at work, school, special events, and even at doing everyday things. Many people have experienced a feeling like this and that is normal. But having a social anxiety disorder can have a huge affect in someone’s life style. The effects of having disorder can lead to bad results in life.

What is an anxiety disorder?- Anxiety is “a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one's daily activities...” Anxiety disorders involve more than temporary fear or worry. There are numerous disorders involving anxiety, which includes: social phobia, panic disorder, separation anxiety disorder, etc.

Social phobias or social anxiety disorder is one of the most common personality disorders affecting adolescents and young adults in the United States. According to the National Institute for Mental Health, approximately 40 million

Social anxiety is the third largest mental problem in the world. Social anxiety is fear of interaction with other people, being judged, embarrassment, humiliation or depression. In the United sates about 40 million Americans have this Disorder. Social anxiety can be caused by biological, psychological and environmental factors; these factors can be effectively identified and treated.

Social phobia, more commonly known as social anxiety, defines itself as having a fear of scrutinizing judgement or embarrassment from peers or people of authority. One usually acquires this disorder from his or hers environment when growing up. The National Institute

Social anxiety disorder, which is also called social phobia involves overwhelming worry and self-consciousness about everyday social situations. The worry often centers on a fear of being judged by others, or behaving in a way that might cause embarrassment or lead to ridicule. The fear may be made worse by a lack of social skills or experience in social situations. The anxiety can build into a panic attack. As a result of the fear, the person endures certain social situations in extreme distress or may avoid them altogether. In addition, people with social anxiety disorder often suffer anticipatory anxiety, the fear of a situation before it even happens, for days or weeks before the event. In many cases, the person is aware that the fear is unreasonable, yet is unable to overcome it. (Goldberg)

This type of Anxiety Disorder has a direct correlation relating to social situations. A person experiencing this disorder has a chronic fear of other people’s perceptions of them. They are especially likely to avoid any situation where they are being observed by others such as giving presentations or activities that must be performed in front of an audience, large or small. In extreme circumstances where social anxiety disorder exists, a person will avoid social situations all together and will become a “hermit” in their own individual abode. This disorder is impairing to one’s normal life functioning because it often affects a person’s ability to perform the essential duties in a work environment. It also deters them from engaging in typical conversations because the fear of being embarrassed or judged is so extreme (Fleming, 2012).

A sample of first year female college students form Shiraz university with Persian language recruited (n=318) in multi-stage sampling method and completed the trait measure of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Goruch, Lushene, Vagg, Jacobs 1983). After scoring, 20 subject belonging to the .25 percent of upper distribution as to high anxiety group (age: 19.16± .52 years); (scale scores: 58.3±2.9) and 20 subject belonging to the .25 percent of lower distribution as to low anxiety group (age: 19.28 ± .6years); (scale scores: 31.1± 2.3). Participants were excluded if: 1) a history of substance abuse, 2) a head injury that resulted in a loss of consciousness, 3) a medical illness that could affect neuropsychological performance,

The Beck Anxiety Inventory is a 21-item scale that measures the severity of self-reported anxiety in adults and adolescents. The inventory was created by Aaron T. Beck and his colleague, Robert A. Steer, at the Center for Cognitive Therapy, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. The most recent edition was published in 1993 by The Psychological Corporation, Harcourt Brace & Company in San Antonio, TX. The first edition was published in 1988. The 1993 edition recommends different scoring guidelines than previous editions. There is only one form and one manual as part of the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). To purchase the BAI in 2010, the manual and 25 scoring sheets

     Social anxiety is the fear of social situations and the interaction with other people that can automatically bring on feelings of self-consciousness, judgement, evaluation, and inferiority. Put differently social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people, leading to feelings of inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression. If a person usually becomes anxious in social situations, but seems fine when they are by them selves, then social anxiety may be the problem.

Feeling anxious before giving a speech or presenting a project is normal, but when that anxiety carries over into being nervous before going to a casual party or meeting up with friends, that is when it might be more than just nerves. Social anxiety is one of the most common forms of anxiety. About fifteen million adults in America suffer from social anxiety, with the typical onset age being thirteen (Social Anxiety Disorder). Overcoming social anxiety takes tremendous efforts and can take many years. There are many different methods people have tried using to overcome their fears. Two common ones people use are learning to control their breath and cognitive-behavioral therapy. With persistence and determination, people can learn to deal with their social anxiety the healthy way, or better yet, overcome it completely.

Also the retest-reliability of the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS; Leary, 1983) is .80. “The correlation coefficient of the IAS and Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD; Peng et al., 2004) is 0.66, whereas it is 0.29 for the Self-rating Anxiety Scale.” Although the IAS was very valid, it did not cover all factors of social anxiety of the Tibetan, Han, and Muslim college students in Qinghai Province. Another limitation was the stratified random sampling that they used in their study. Representations of this study are unclear because of this method of sampling is random and simple. This sampling method should be paired with other sampling methods to make this study more effective and representations more clear. A further limitation was time and capacity therefore limiting the researchers. They did not consider situational factors effect anxiety in their studies on the students. Furthermore they only studied students of Tibetan, Han, and Muslim ethnicity so the result may not be generalized to other

Additionally, the 2011 Mayo Clinic article states that certain factors can increase the risk of developing social anxiety disorder. These include “negative experiences in childhood, such as teasing, bullying, rejection, ridicule of humiliation.” This article also states that specific events in adulthood can trigger social anxiety disorder symptoms for the first time. Some triggers include “meeting new people, giving a speech in public, and witnessing the anxiety of other people.” In addition, having a health condition like “facial disfigurement, stuttering, Parkinson’s disease and other health conditions” may also trigger feelings of self-consciousness.

Such believes can be harmful to these students, and thus cause more severe aversion symptoms. My research is restricted to social anxiety in university student and its effect on academic level. It explains the consequences and different outlooks of social anxiety which occur due to different social situations.