Fear of Public Speaking

About 40 percent of the American people suffer from fear of public speaking (McKiernan, 1984). Because of the scope of this problem both psychologists and educators have long been concerned with factors contributive to fear of public speaking, sometimes termed "communication apprehension". For example, Motley (1990) stated that fear of public speaking is caused by the speaker's focus on the need to perform and his/her anticipated assessment of personal oratorical skills. Indeed, in Motley's study, it was observed that when people do not conceptualize the event as a call for personal performance but rather view it as a chance to communicate a message, their anxiety over public speaking was much lower.

Beatty and Friedland (1990) studied the relative contribution of state and trait factors on fear of public speaking. Trait factors were found to be better predictors than state factors, in particular the factors of perceived novelty (seeing the audience from the perspective of the speaker), conspicuousness, and subordinate status were found to be strong predictors of public speaking state anxiety (as measured by the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension questionnaire). Indeed, in a similar study, Beatty (1988) replicated these findings and further observed that dissimilarity and degree of prior history of speech-making were also significant predictors of anxiety levels.

In another study examining for contributors to fear of public speaking, Daly, Vangelisti and Lawr

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Use of Hypnosis in Treatment of Anxiety Disorders .... Stanton (1991) used hypnosis in treating 24 male executives' fear of public speaking. .... Overcoming fear of public speaking with the diagnostic trance. .... (3309 13 )

Management Techniques .... My fear of public speaking had passed in the aggravation of the moment; however, I still had to deal with the distraction of students wandering in throughout .... (2778 11 )

Anxiety disorders .... by extreme embarrassment or fear of exposure to certain social or public situations in which the individual must perform a function such as speaking or eating. .... (2605 10 )

ANALYSIS OF THE MAGIC OF THINKING BIG .... that and taking action in other situations, including volunteering to give a speech when I am afraid of public speaking, can help overcome fear as I learn that .... (2337 9 )

2) 87 college freshmen enrolled in Speech I classes at Moorpark College. Speech I is a class that is required of all Moorpark College students. The high school from which seniors were drawn did not offer speech classes. Procedures In each of the social studies classes at Moorpark High School and in the three speech classes at Moorpark College, teachers (during the first class meeting) asked students if they would voluntarily participate in the study by completing the research instrument. All students agreed. They then completed the study's test instrument which was the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension questionnaire (McCroskey, 1978), and returned them to their teachers. Thus, students were volunteer subjects. Instrument The study's measure of public speaking anxiety was the P.R.C.A. which according to McCroskey (1977, 1978) yields reliability coefficients that average .90. McCroskey also reports good validity for the test instrument and notes that it has been used in a wide variety of research. Further, Daly (1978) has observed not only strong test-retest reliabilities for the P.R.C.A. but also strong internal reliability. Data Analysis All statistics conducted in the study were descriptive in nature. Speci

Category: Psychology - F