ENG ELC 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Anxiety Disorder, Reinforcement, Research Question
Document Summary
Social phobia: anxiety disorder characterized by a significant amount of fear in social situations causing distress and impaired ability to function. Two-factor model of anxiety (mowrer & miller 1950s) First, an anxiety-triggering event leads to an avoidance response. The escape and avoidance responses that are formed on these anxiety-triggering events, while reducing current anxiety, protect against further aversive stimulation, but contribute to the maintenance of anxiety (negative reinforcement). People experience social anxiety when they are motivated to make a desired impression on other people but doubt that they will successfully do so. The theory predicts that the likelihood and intensity of social anxiety increases as people become more motivated to make a particular desired impression and are less certain that they will successfully do so. Implications for practice: reduce motivation for self-presentation (e. g. by violating norms, increase social self-efficacy, thinking model to check (in)effectiveness of other interventions. The more self-efficacy increased, the more social anxiety decreased.
