Behaviours that exacerbate the problem
The way in which a person acts in response to their anxiety can exacerbate the anxiety. People with social phobia often do things or avoid situations to avoid the feeling of anxiety or reduce its intensity, but these usually serve as the driving force behind the cycle and it continuing influence in the person’s life.
Focus on internal sensations
After a person experiences anxiety in certain situations and is concerned about being anxious in those situations again (e.g. hot flushes or trembling at a staff meeting), he/she can become very focused on his/her internal physical sensations in those or similar situations.
This can result in the person being very sensitive and focused on their physical sensations (e.g. increase in heart rate, or shortness of breath) and may come to interpret any mild sensations as indicating that something is wrong e.g. interpreting a heart flutter as a heart attack, or dizziness as ‘going crazy’.
Hyper vigilant to possible threat
As the person is already anxious in social situations, such situations are perceived as threatening, making them more likely to be on the ‘lookout’ for possible threats.
The person may be more attentive to others’ facial expressions and body movements (e.g. “He frowned. He must think I’m, a twit!”) or attentive to their own bodily reactions – “I can feel my face hotting up. I bet I’m red as a beetroot! Everyone will laugh at me!”
Avoidance behaviours
Since the person feels fearful or anxious in social situations, they see it as a realistic option to avoid or prematurely leave these situations.
The avoidance allows the person to temporality avoid feelings of anxiety and, thus, reinforces their need to avoid such circumstances by not allowing the person to objectively test if the situation is safe. Thus, thus they continue these avoidance behaviours and the cycle is further maintained.
More subtle avoidance behaviours include wearing sunglasses to avoid eye contact with others or concentrating only on ‘safe’ topics of conversation (e.g. topics of interest that they know a lot about).
Safety behaviours
Similar to avoidance behaviours, the person engages in behaviours that will prevent them from doing something embarrassing, thus ensuring minimal focus of attention on them.
For example, the person may constantly check that their zipper is done up; may speak softly so to avoid people picking up on any mistakes that they might make; carry water with them in case they start to feel hot; only go out if a friend accompanies them.
These behaviours are likely to draw more attention to the person (e.g. if someone asks them to speak louder), thus achieving the opposite of what they had hoped.
