CONDITIONING THEORY - A MODEL FOR THE ETIOLOGY OF PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY

To study the etiology of public speaking anxiety (speech phobia), 30 S s with the fear of public speaking, and 24 controls without this fear were asked about past public speaking experiences, their beliefs about the main reason for their phobia, and their concerns in the feared si tuation. All speech phobics met the DSM-III-R criteria for social phob ia. Results showed that traumatic external events, vicarious and infor mational learning-the causes for phobia that fit in best with Rachman' s conditioning theory-were notably uncommon among these phobics, who a ttributed their fear most often to panic attacks. Yet it was not clear whether panic attacks were causes or consequences of phobia.