THE ETIOLOGY OF SOCIAL PHOBIA

Human beings are by nature social animals, but for some, social scruti ny is a source of extreme anguish. Those with social phobia, for examp le, suffer excessive and often disabling concern about potential and r eal social-evaluative threat. As new and effective therapies for this condition are pursued, there is a simultaneous movement to extend the understanding of this disorder's etiology. In psychiatry, as in the re st of medicine, this development of new treatments often occurs in par allel with increasing sophistication about causes of illness. Advances in one area typically inform and predictably lead to advances in the other. Social phobia is recognized as a relatively common and signific antly impairing anxiety disorder. As with other psychiatric disorders, emerging models of the etiology of social phobia are derived from con verging evidence of interacting biological and environmental contribut ions. Current theories regarding the evolution of social phobia will b e addressed, including biological preparedness to fear scrutiny by oth ers, genetically transmitted predisposition to fear acquisition, nonge netic familial and environmental factors, as well as other possible ca uses and antecedents. Additionally, we describe recent work on behavio ral inhibition in infancy as an identifiable early marker of proneness to the development of anxiety disorders, including social phobia.