284 CHAPTER 7
in Hughes a powerful emotional response of humiliation or shame. He would then
be likely to avoid similar stimuli.Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning principles apply to social phobia as well: Like a person with
agoraphobia, a person with social phobia might avoid social situations in order to
decrease the probability of an uncomfortable experience. The avoidant behavior
does decrease anxiety and is thus reinforced (Mowrer, 1939). With each type of
uncomfortable social situation that Hughes avoided, he learned that he could feel
less anxious by staying away from those situations. And so, he avoided as many
anxiety-provoking social situations as his money and power allowed.Social Factors
Social factors that contribute to social phobia include the message some children
receive from their interactions with family members—that social interactions can be
a threat—and the infl uence of culture on people’s concerns and fears about social
interactions.Parent-Child Interactions
Extreme overprotection by parents (as Hughes reportedly received from his mother)
is associated with childhood anxiety (Hudson & Rapee, 2001; Wiborg & Dahl,
1997); such overprotection may lead children to cope with their anxi-
ety through avoidance (Barrett et al., 1996). In Hughes’s case, his
mother was preoccupied and concerned about her son’s shyness and his
response to teasing, and she appears to have—perhaps inadvertently—
reinforced his natural tendencies by letting him avoid social situations
that made him uncomfortable (Fowler, 1986).Culture
Different cultures emphasize different concerns about social interactions,
and these concerns infl uence the specifi c nature of social phobia. For
example, in certain Asian cultures, such as those of Korea and Japan, a
person with social phobia may be especially afraid of offending others;
in particular, he or she may fear that his or her body odor or blush-
ing will be offensive. In Japan, this fear is known as taijin kyofusho
(Dinnel, Kleinknecht, & Tanaka- Matsumi, 2002; Guarnaccia, 1997a).
This contrasts with a fear among North Americans and Europeans of
being humiliated by something they say or do (Lee & Oh, 1999).
The results from one study suggest that social phobias are becoming more com-
mon over time, and a higher proportion of people in more recent birth cohorts will
develop the disorder (Heimberg et al., 2000).FEEDBACK LOOPS IN ACTION: Understanding Social Phobia
A genetic or other neurological vulnerability, such as a shy temperament, can pre-
dispose people to developing social phobia (Bienvenu et al., 2007). The neurological
vulnerability both contributes to and is affected by distorted thinking and condi-
tioning to social situations (psychological factors). In addition, the anxiety and cog-
nitive distortions may be triggered by a negative social event (social factor) and are
then perpetuated by negative self-evaluations and avoidance of the feared social
interactions (Antony & Barlow, 2002). Based on these psychological factors, people
with social phobia may interact with others in ways that lead other people to rebuff
them (Taylor & Alden, 2006), confi rming their own negative view of themselves
and of social interactions.
Furthermore, within the classical conditioning framework, both the unconditioned
stimulus and the conditioned stimulus pertain to social interactions. Thus, the classi-
cal conditioning of social phobia is an event that involves social and psychological
factors, as well as neurological ones—given that brain functioning is altered through
the conditioning. Figure 7.8 illustrates these factors and their feedback loops.P SNCulture can infl uence the nature of the symptoms
of social phobia. In Korea, for example, social
fears called taijin kyofusho involve the possibility
of offending others, perhaps through body odor
or blushing.Bob Daemmrich/Photo Edit