278 CHAPTER 7
Social Phobia (Social Anxiety Disorder)
Earl Campbell and Howard Hughes were alike in that their anxiety symptoms
did not signifi cantly affect their lives until adulthood, after both men had already
attained professional success. Although Howard Hughes did not appear to have
experienced panic attacks, he had other anxiety-related problems. Let’s examine his
life and travails with anxiety.
Hughes grew up in Texas as an only child in a wealthy family; his father
founded a tool company and was often traveling on business. As a child and teen-
ager, Hughes was shy and had only one friend; he was “supersensitive”—he didn’t
seem to take teasing in stride as other children did—and he preferred to be alone
or spend time with his mother. When he was almost 17, his mother, a homemaker,
died unexpectedly of complications from a minor surgical procedure. Two years
later, Hughes became an orphan: His father died unexpectedly of a heart attack.
Hughes was independent and rich at the age of 19. Within the next 6 years, he’d
have triumphs and disasters: He’d win an Academy Award and survive a horrifi c
airplane crash that crushed his cheekbone. Four years later, he’d found Hughes
Aircraft Company, and 3 years after that, set a world record for fl ight. During his
lifetime, Howard Hughes was famous for these accomplishments. But after his death
in 1976, he became famous for his bizarre behavior in the last decades of his life,
portrayed in the fi lms The Aviator, Melvin and Howard, and The Amazing Howard
Hughes, among others.
As Hughes became more successful, he also became reclusive, seeing fewer and
fewer people. But it wasn’t simply that he became a hermit. He went through pe-
riods of time when he would do nothing but watch fi lms, 24 hours a day, naked,
moving only from bed to chair and back, with occasional forays to the bathroom.
And “raised to believe in his own delicate nature and in the grave danger of being
exposed to germs, he became obsessed about his health, and feared that he too was
destined for an early death. The slightest change in his physical condition or the
mildest illness now threw him into a panic. He began to take pills and resort to all
sorts of precautions to insulate himself from disease and illness. It was an obsession
that would grow with time” (Barlett & Steele, 1979, p. 52). When asked about this
behavior, he defended it by saying, “Everybody carries germs around with them. I
want to live longer than my parents, so I avoid germs” (Fowler, 1986).
Clearly, Hughes’s behavior wasn’t normal. But what was the matter with him?
Where is the line drawn between normal shyness and an extreme reaction to social
situations or any other feared object or situation? At what point did Hughes’s con-
cerns about health and germs become unreasonable? To answer these questions,
let’s explore social phobia (also called social anxiety disorder) and then examine
other types of anxiety disorders from which Hughes may have suffered.What Is Social Phobia?
Howard Hughes had always been quiet and shy, and he had problems relating nor-
mally to people. Even after he became famous as a fi lm producer and aviator, he
was still shy—to the point that, when dating the actress Katherine Hepburn and vis-
iting her at her family’s home, he refused to join the family for dinner and insisted
on waiting to eat until everyone had left the table so that he could eat alone. His
problems got worse: In his 50s and 60s, he refused to see anyone but his immediate
aides, except for a few times when legal matters required him to interact face to face
with a handful of other people. These behaviors are evidence of something more
extensive than shyness; they are symptoms of social phobia.
Social phobia, also called social anxiety disorder, is an intense fear of public
humiliation or embarrassment, together with the avoidance of social situations
likely to cause this fear (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; see Table 7.8).
Such social situations often include those where a person could be judged—for in-
stance, public speaking. Social phobia may also arise in social situations in whichSocial phobia
The anxiety disorder characterized by intense
fear of public humiliation or embarrassment,
together with the avoidance of social
situations likely to cause this fear; also called
social anxiety disorder.