Thanks, that was an interesting post, it seems like an overall plausible theory. In fact more plausible than the recent one by Chipmonk you linked to, as your theory is much wider and somewhat includes the one by Chipmonk (per point two in your list).
I think one common reason for social anxiety is still missing in this list though: Fear of being humiliated. A rejection, or a cringe comment, can feel excessively humiliating to someone with social anxiety, even if they don’t believe the other person will feel awkward or will dislike them.
I think that’s indeed something exposure therapy can help with. Just thinking something like “this fear of humiliation is clearly exaggerated, let’s not worry about it” is like thinking “this fear of spiders is clearly exaggerated, let’s not worry about it”. It won’t help much because the fear by itself isn’t really what’s exaggerated, it’s the consequence of something that is exaggerated. The fear comes from correctly predicting that a spider touching you would freak you out excessively, just as you’re correctly predicting that you would feel excessively humiliated if a social faux pas or a rejection were to occur. It’s more a phobia than a proper anxiety. I don’t think you can reason yourself out of a phobia without some form of “exposure therapy”.
Though again, that’s only one additional potential cause for social anxiety which doesn’t apply to every case.
I do agree with you about exposure therapy; I think it’s important in the sense that it gets you reps on this stuff, I just don’t think it necessarily functions alone without conscious reordering of your goals away from “control others’ internal state”
I saw several people at LessOnline concerned explicitly about their social phobia about trying to ensure they were never boring anyone, and I don’t think that is solvable without explicitly abandoning “never bore anyone” as a goal (an alternative goal structure might be “ensure I am always giving adequate space in the conversation”, which is fine because that is a goal you can easily implement and verify.)
Thanks, that was an interesting post, it seems like an overall plausible theory. In fact more plausible than the recent one by Chipmonk you linked to, as your theory is much wider and somewhat includes the one by Chipmonk (per point two in your list).
I think one common reason for social anxiety is still missing in this list though: Fear of being humiliated. A rejection, or a cringe comment, can feel excessively humiliating to someone with social anxiety, even if they don’t believe the other person will feel awkward or will dislike them.
I think that’s indeed something exposure therapy can help with. Just thinking something like “this fear of humiliation is clearly exaggerated, let’s not worry about it” is like thinking “this fear of spiders is clearly exaggerated, let’s not worry about it”. It won’t help much because the fear by itself isn’t really what’s exaggerated, it’s the consequence of something that is exaggerated. The fear comes from correctly predicting that a spider touching you would freak you out excessively, just as you’re correctly predicting that you would feel excessively humiliated if a social faux pas or a rejection were to occur. It’s more a phobia than a proper anxiety. I don’t think you can reason yourself out of a phobia without some form of “exposure therapy”.
Though again, that’s only one additional potential cause for social anxiety which doesn’t apply to every case.
Yeah. Rejection sucks, social humiliation sucks.
I do agree with you about exposure therapy; I think it’s important in the sense that it gets you reps on this stuff, I just don’t think it necessarily functions alone without conscious reordering of your goals away from “control others’ internal state”
I saw several people at LessOnline concerned explicitly about their social phobia about trying to ensure they were never boring anyone, and I don’t think that is solvable without explicitly abandoning “never bore anyone” as a goal (an alternative goal structure might be “ensure I am always giving adequate space in the conversation”, which is fine because that is a goal you can easily implement and verify.)