Week 13 Post 1

 Link to source for this week: Why Are We Scared of Public Speaking?

It occurred to me that I've talked a lot about how to overcome communication anxiety but I haven't really investigated why it happens. This week is an attempt to rectify that problem.

Communication Anxiety's legal name is Glossophobia and about 25% of people report having it

4 primary factors to this fear

1) Physiology
-Autonomic nervous system responsible for fear and anxiety
-Audiences can be perceived as a threat, triggering "hyper-arousal"
-hyper-arousal magnifies emotions like fear and anxiety, creating a cycle in which they magnify themselves
-this can cause a small fear of public speaking to be exacerbated exponentially

2) Thoughts
-people overestimate the stakes of communicating their ideas to the audience
-people are unnecessarily critical of themselves
-performance orientation vs communication orientation
--performance=public speaking is a task that requires very special skills and the audience is being judgemental no matter what
--communication=public speaking is about expressing ideas/presenting information/telling a story
-communication orientation is much healthier and more conducive to effective speaking
-shift from trying to win an evaluation to trying to be understood removes pressure

3) Situations
even if a person has a healthy view of speaking (communication rather than performance) some situations can still make them anxious
-Lack of experience
-Degree of evaluation
-Status difference
-New ideas
-New audiences

4) Skills
-most people consider themselves naturally good speakers but everyone has room for growth
-people who work on skills are the ones who stand out the most
-more skills = more confidence
-more confidence = less fear

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