SOME PEOPLE ARE BORN WITH STAGE FRIGHT
Public anxiety is a universal worry, topping the list on national surveys of individual fears. Imagining your audience in their underwear might not help because research shows that some people are born with stage fright.
Texas Christian University Speech Communication Professor Ralph Behnke has been looking into the physical and psychological manifestations of public speaking for nearly four decades. Much of it, he says, you arrive in this world with.
"Traits, like the speech anxiety trait, are built into an individual. And trying to change traits which are resistant to change, isn't always effective," says Behnke. The goal of his research is to isolate the times of highest physical and psychological anxiety so therapists can devise ways to treat the fear.
Behnke has found that the psychological and physical signs of anxiety don't usually correlate. Someone can feel very anxious emotionally, but it won't register physically, and vice versa.
"Physically, the highest point of anxiety and arousal is the moment a speaker beings speaking. We have never found an exception," says Behnke. "The psychological high point occurs when the assignment is given. Conversely, once a person has the chance to work on their presentation, anxiety drops way down."
There is hope. Fearful speakers can take classes, join speaking groups or volunteer to make performances in comfortable settings, such as church. If practice doesn't help, a professional speech-communication therapist might.
"Public speaking anxiety is similar to test taking. There are some students who have a high capability but are still terrorized by tests. In a way, it's the nature-versus-nurture debate in a narrower framework. But most people are able to be helped by mild therapy," says Behnke.
There is very little difference in anxiety during presentations between men and women, but women worry about it a lot more beforehand, says Behnke.
The good news for speakers is that the audience only picks up a fraction of the speaker's fear.
"But we have discovered that speaking anxiety is contagious to other speakers, so if the guy before you is really terrified, that's going to affect your performance. As a speaker, you do pick up on his fear, even though the audience doesn't," says Behnke.
Behnke's "speaking" points:
* Early childhood events at home and school condition a person's anxiety about communicating with others.
* No single coping technique--pretend that the audience is naked in order to reduce nerves--has proven superior. A combination of several is usually effective.
* People vary in their biological susceptibility to developing speech anxiety.
* About 20 percent of the general population has very high levels of public speaking fear.
* Audiences greatly underestimate a speaker's fear, detecting only about 11 percent of the speaker's anxiety.
* Though a stammering or shaky voice is usually associated with anxiety, truly shaken speakers gesture and vocalize less, which the audience wrongly attributes to lack of preparation.
* The most common symptom of speech anxiety is communication avoidance, not nervous behavior.
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Editors:You can reach Behnke at 817-257-6664. Please contact Steve Infanti of Dick Jones Communications at 814-867-1963 or [email protected]
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