Communication Apprehension
It all starts at a young age when you get associated with the quiet kids. Often you are the shy one in the class, but no one really thinks much of it. Then you move on to middle school and have a handful of friends, still though, you are not the popular one. After middle school you preparing for high school and classes take on a whole new dimension. You are asked to participate in class discussions and even work with others in a small group environment. In the past, everyone knew you as being quiet and shy, so when it comes to people choosing their group, you are not exactly on their priority list. This eventually leads to lower self-esteem and negative reinforcement. High school progresses and so does your fear of social situations such as public speaking and working in groups. Nevertheless, you pass with mediocre grades and eventually gain acceptance into college. Little do you know that your worst nightmare is just around the corner. You have to take a public speaking cou!rse to graduate from your university. Somehow you manage to live through college and your public speaking class, but the nightmare continues. Now you enter the real world and come to realize that in every job you apply for y
In the past, the need for professional help to alleviate communication Public Speaking is the number one fear of Americans today (Whitworth, Cochran, 1966). Unfortunately, public speaking is essential in almost everything we do now- a- days. It is perfectly natural to feel "butterflies in your stomach," or sweaty hands right before you are going to speak in public, or even in a small group. But sometimes, the fear gets so intense that you cannot control it. You feel so much anxiety that you begin avoiding all situations that make you feel this way. This natural fear could turn into communication apprehension. Communication apprehension is very hard to detect. Since it is a common fear among Americans, it is hard to distinguish between a normal nervous reaction and actually suffering from communication apprehension. This does not only affect the person as a communicator it also affects them psychologically. People who suffer from CA tend to have other problems that go hand in hand. People suffering from CA tend to be rejected by people. They are interpreted to be shy or not interested in the subject and therefore begin receiving negative feedback. People associate them as mediocre, lazy, and unwilling to put effort into work. As you can see from the previous description, this affects the individual's self-esteem. All the individual has are memories of being rejected and unwanted. No one ever explains to them that they might be suffering from a common disorder so in their eyes, they are the only ones with the problem and no one seems to understand it. This eventually evolves into a m! One of the predecessors to communication that must be addressed is fear. Although some people are comfortable speaking in small groups or in large crowds, there is a large segment of society that truly has a deep fear of it. The question is how does this fear appear in a human. It is important to understand that these fears are formed and truly cause severe anxiety of speaking in a social situation. According to Kagan (1994), there are three classes of events that create fear in an individual. These fears are innate fear, conditioned fear, and fear of the unfamiliar. Conditioned avoidance without fear is often a fear that many people suffer from. Often people are very extroverted and able to speak in large groups, but a bad situation can change all of that. That bad situation happens when a person views a bad situation in which another speaker had a bad experience when speaking. This causes a fear that it could happen to them too. Obviously this is something that can correlate directly into several social situations that people encounter. Watching the best speaker in the class totally lose their confidence is something that many college students witness. This triggers the fear inside of the college student waiting to speak because they assume that if the best speaker can lose their ability to speak confidently, then so can they. There is one final fear though that is acquired in some people. (Horowitz, 2002). The last fear to understand is unfamiliar event fear. This fear is acquired when a person is continuously denied the opportunity to speak in social situations by a much more experienced speaker. This can be seen in classrooms all over the country. Many times a student will be overlooked by his or her group because the leader does all the talking. This creates an unfamiliar situation when this student is chosen to lead a future group. The fear arises because they are totally unfamiliar with this situation. They become shy and unwilling to speak up because the entire experience of speaking in this situation is entirely new to them. This is a fear that many college students and high school students suffer from. This fear can also be triggered when faced with a situation in which a parent was over-dominant. Having a mother or father that never let their child speak up in the house can ca
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Approximate Word count = 2633
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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