A study conducted in China shows that individuals with significant social anxiety tend to motivate their social behavior when they need effort. However, this effect was observed only in the tasks that are expected to be a socially unstable individual to get something for others. In contrast, when the goal was to prevent the loss of others, there was no difference between high social anxiety and low participants. This study was published later. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology.
Social anxiety is characterized by intense fear of judgment, embarrassment or negative evaluation in social situations. Those with social anxiety often can often avoid social interactions or to endure with significant pain. In general, social anxiety situations include public speeches, working with new people, while working.
Individuals with social anxiety can experience physical symptoms such as sweat, trembling, Gyeongju heart or area. This condition is difficult to interfere with everyday life, form a relationship, work at work, or participate in social activities. Social anxiety generally develops during adolescence, and can last as adults if it is not processed.
Research author YE YANG and his colleagues attempted to explore the social behavior of very social and unstable individuals and compare with people of individuals with low social anxiety. Previous studies have suggested that people with high social anxiety are less likely to be involved in social behavior. For example, they tend to benefit others and volunteer for tasks that tend to be less generous in economic games.
This tendency can come from fear of negative evaluation, rejection and embarrassment when interacting with others. Their self -consciousness and avoiding behavior are difficult to start or participate even when they have a desire. Based on this, the authors assumed that a very socially unstable individual is willing to be willing to be involved in social behavior in the public environment. However, they predicted that there was no significant difference between socially unstable and unstable individuals when private behavior occurred in private contexts.
Researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, 37 college students with high social anxiety and 36 students with low social anxiety participated. The average age was about 20 years old. Each participant has completed two blocks of 80 tests designed to measure pro -social behavior. One block occurred in a personal environment (for example, the participants were alone in a room with headphones), the other blocks were performed in a public environment, two observers (one man and one woman) and the audio feedback were provided through the speaker instead of the headphone.
In each block, half of the exams had to work for personal benefits, and the other half tried to benefit from other people (but the participants did not know this, but a virtual person). In the effort -based work, I got an increase in monetary compensation to obtain monetary rewards by pressing the “Q” key of the keyboard within 5 seconds. Participants can accept the default results so that they do not require effort or participate in key pressure. The number of major presses was recorded as an indicator of effort. During this work, the participant wore an EEG (ElectroEncephalography) device.
The same participant participated in the second experiment with a similar procedure. But instead of rewarding, the work focused on preventing loss. If the participant chooses not to exercise effort, the trial will cause 90 cents to lose 90 cents. If they decide to make efforts by pressing the “Q” keys as much as possible within 5 seconds, success can reduce the loss by up to 10 cents.
According to the first experiment, participants with high social anxiety are more likely to make their own efforts than others. In contrast, people with low social anxiety worked equally in two scenarios. But when I worked hard, the bass participants were more successful in securing their own profits than others. On the other hand, participants with high social anxiety were performed well when they secured profits for themselves and others.
The second experiment showed that all the participants were willing to try to prevent their losses rather than prevent the loss of other participants. However, unlike the first experiment, there was no big difference among participants with high amounts of efforts to avoid losses, high social anxiety and low social anxiety. In addition, the private context of the public did not affect action in any experiment.
“Social anxiety reduces individual social behavior, while evaluation anxiety and sensitive behavioral goals can alleviate the impact to some extent. This discovery is important for developing strategies to improve psychological health and promote healthier social interactions. ”
This study reveals the connection between social anxiety and social behavior. However, it is important to note that this study includes relatively small financial benefits and losses, minimal efforts requirements and novel social behaviors. The results may have been different if the steaks were higher effort or participate in actual individuals known to participants.
paper,”Social anxiety weakens social behavior when it is necessary.“YE YANG, YAN ZHOU, Huijuan Zhang, Hui Ko, Jia Zhao, Jiangli Tian and Cheng Guo.
