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Virtually everyone with social anxiety wonders why they feel so insecure in certain social situations, while others seem to remain calm and confident, even when exposed to large groups of people.
In this video, we summarize the current state of science on the possible causes of social anxiety disorder (SAD), also called social phobia.
Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section, especially regarding the factors that you think have contributed to the development of your social anxiety.
1:23 Hereditary predisposing genetics
3:03 Insecure attachment style
4:39 Parental shortcomings
6:35 Traumatic social experiences
8:29 Vicarious conditioning (observational learning)
9:13 Challenging experiences in childhood
10:01 Poor social skills
12:15 Cognitive biases
14:02 Biological vulnerabilities
15:33 Cultural values & attitudes
To access our eBook, just use the following link to access our website: https://www.conquersocialanxiety.com/product/ebook/
#SocialAnxiety #socialphobia
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0:00
Social anxiety disorder, often also called social phobia, refers to an excessive fear of being judged
0:05
rejected, or negatively evaluated in social or performance situations. While it's normal to feel some level of insecurity from time to time when interacting with others
0:14
people affected by social phobia either experience it in virtually all social situations
0:20
or they have a few specific scenarios that trigger intense anxiety in them
0:23
such as public speaking, dating someone they are attracted to, or simply being the center of attention in a large group, just to name a few examples
0:30
In this video, we'll go over what causes social anxiety disorder. Spoiler alert, there's hardly one specific cause for the condition
0:37
Instead, social phobia tends to be the result of a unique combination of different predisposing and contributing factors
0:44
And those factors are what we're going to talk about in this video. So without further ado, here's a complete overview of the current state of the science
0:51
on the causes of social anxiety disorder. Before getting started, please note that this video is made for educational purposes only
1:02
and does not replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult your primary care physician or a qualified mental health professional
1:06
if you suffer from social anxiety or similar affliction. As with most psychological conditions, most contemporary experts agree that social anxiety
1:12
disorder or SAD is caused by a combination of genetic, environmental and socio-economic factors
1:19
For the purpose of this video, we've grouped these factors into 10 categories
1:23
The first concerns genetics or genes that may predispose a person to develop social phobia
1:28
Although there's no specific social anxiety gene, or at least it hasn't been found yet
1:32
there are strong familial links. This means that social phobia often runs in families
1:37
For example, if one of your parents, grandparents, cousins, or siblings has a shy and timid temperament
1:42
you may have a certain genetic predisposition, which makes you more vulnerable to developing SAD
1:48
And again, it is important to note that this does not necessarily cause social anxiety per
1:52
say. It just makes it more likely that a person may develop it. For example, there are also many
1:56
people who have several socially anxious relatives, but to turn out to be quite outgoing and confident
2:01
in social situations. Just as there are many people who have no relatives with a shy and
2:06
socially inhibited temperament, but to grow up developing SAD. This genetic component is
2:10
especially prominent in people with generalized social anxiety disorder, which is the type of SAD
2:15
that refers to intense anxiety and insecurity in most or virtually all social situations
2:21
People affected by this type of social anxiety often say that they have been shy and inhibited
2:26
in the presence of others for as long as they can remember. This stands in stark contrast to the experiences of people with so-called circumscribed or
2:33
specific social anxiety disorder. A type of social anxiety in which people experience insecurity only in a few specific social settings
2:41
People with this type of SAD can often recall times of normal social functioning with many
2:45
even claiming to have been extroverted before their social anxiety appeared around the onset
2:50
of puberty. So in summary, genes can make people more vulnerable to developing social phobia and
2:56
especially for people who have always been shy and socially inhibited, genes often play
3:00
an important role in the development of their SAD. The next potential cause of social phobia is an insecure attachment style
3:06
As you may correctly suspect, this concept refers to our way of relating to others and
3:10
bonding with them. More specifically, it refers to our emotional connection to our primary caregiver during
3:15
the first years of our lives, which usually is a child's mother. If the emotional bond between the young child and their mother is good and secure, later
3:23
in life the child is likely going to relate to other people, especially their romantic
3:27
partners in a secure and healthy way. This happens because the child has learned that she or he is fundamentally lovable and
3:33
that others will be there for them and fulfill their needs. If the mother does not meet the child's needs adequately enough, for example by not feeding
3:40
it when it is hungry or by being physically absent most of the time, also by sporadically
3:45
rejecting the child without any apparent reason, the child is more likely to develop an insecure
3:50
attachment style. People with an insecure attachment style have learned, usually early in
3:54
life, that others cannot be trusted and they often feel inadequate and unlovable. As a result
3:59
this influences their way of relating to others and bonding with them. For example, some people
4:04
may excessively cling to their romantic partners out of fear of being abandoned. Others may avoid
4:08
close relationships altogether so as not to run the risk of being rejected and re-experience their
4:14
childhood trauma of their mother-child relationship. It has been shown that many people with social anxiety disorder have an insecure attachment style This does not mean that an insecure attachment style necessarily causes SAD but there is certainly a correlation between the two And this makes sense
4:28
If you believe you are not good enough to be loved and accepted by others, you are naturally going to be worried about others noticing your alleged flaws
4:35
This, of course, leads to insecurity in social situations. The third category of factors that may contribute to the development of social phobia
4:42
is about the shortcomings of a person's parents, meaning that certain ways of treating and raising a child may increase the chances of the child
4:50
developing SAD. For many of you watching, it may be easy to imagine how an insensitive
4:54
emotionally distant, and rejecting parenting style may increase the chances of developing
4:59
social phobia. After all, we just talked about an insecure attachment style, which is often the
5:03
result of this type of parenting. However, there are also many socially anxious people who report
5:08
having been raised by parents who were rather overprotective and controlling with them. These
5:12
These types of behaviors are often based on good intentions, but they can do a lot of harm
5:17
For example, parents who do not allow their child to explore the world out of fear something
5:20
bad may happen to them may rob their child of the chance to develop a sense of self-efficacy
5:25
and general confidence. Likewise those who are overly controlling with their children may foster a view of the
5:30
world in which you have to watch your back as others are only out to get you, looking for your flaws and your mistakes
5:36
And of course, shaming children for educational purposes increases the likelihood they will
5:40
grow up being wary of not breaking any social norms or expectations. And they are more likely
5:45
to have a strong propensity to experience feelings of shame, which as you will know
5:49
if you are affected by social anxiety, plays an important role for people with SAD. And then
5:54
children may also learn to be socially anxious because a parent may model such behavior. For
5:59
example, by overemphasizing the importance of other people's opinions. For example, if your mother or
6:04
father routinely tells you, what will people think of you if you go out of the house dressed like
6:08
this. You are naturally more likely to learn to be tuned into what other people may be thinking of
6:12
you. And the last thing that some parents may do to contribute to the development of SAD of their
6:17
child is to socially isolate them during their childhood. If you do not get to interact with
6:22
other children from a young age, you are less likely to develop good and adequate social skills
6:26
and may not learn how to make and maintain friends. As we will discuss in a moment
6:31
a lack of social skills may also be considered a potential cause of social anxiety. The next
6:35
category is about traumatic social experiences that mark the onset of social anxiety. About half
6:41
of all people with SAD report that they did not have any significant problems with social anxiety
6:45
until they had a specific negative social experience that traumatized them. For example
6:50
there are many teenagers who, for some reason, are being laughed at by their peers, such as when
6:55
presenting something to their class. Others may be the victims of bullying and are ridiculed in
6:59
group settings, or their social anxiety is triggered by a negative social experience with
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the opposite sex and so on. Such traumatic experiences can lead to what psychologists
7:08
call direct conditioning or fear conditioning. Let's say someone has to give a presentation to
7:12
a group of people and commits a mistake or doesn't do a very good job, which then leads
7:17
the audience to laugh about them or to put them down. This of course can be experienced as traumatic
7:22
Of course, this depends on the person and the specific situation, but for this example
7:26
let's just say the person experiences this as highly stressful. The person's brain now realizes
7:31
that this specific situation, presenting something to a group, can lead to negative consequences
7:37
such as being laughed at or mocked, which means that in the end the person is losing some of their
7:41
social status, or in other words, how well they are being viewed and respected by the others
7:46
To protect the person from these potential consequences in the future, their brain goes
7:50
into alarm mode whenever such a situation may arise. For example, when the teacher announces
7:55
that each student must present their homework to the class, or when the boss asks who is going to
7:59
read the outline of the meeting out loud and so on. In these situations, the brain reacts with fear
8:04
or anxiety because this emotion naturally motivates us to avoid threats. Despite its good intentions
8:10
namely to protect the person from losing social status and being rejected, it usually does more
8:15
harm than good because we cannot always avoid social and performance situations and being
8:19
socially anxious when having to face them usually jeopardizes our social performance. Therefore
8:24
traumatic social experiences can heavily influence the development of social phobia. And this does not only account for our own personal experiences
8:32
In fact, it is possible our brains engage in fear conditioning just by witnessing the
8:36
traumatic social experiences of others. This means that a person may learn to be socially anxious and fearful in social situations because their brains saw somebody else having a bad experience in the social realm Which makes their brain say something like hey this type of social situation is dangerous Look how they laughed about that other person and
8:54
rejected them when he or she said this thing. You really got to be alert so this doesn't happen to
8:59
you. This type of conditioning is called observational learning or vicarious conditioning
9:03
and it has been shown to play a role in the development of social anxiety disorder for a
9:07
certain subset of people, especially those who have socially anxious relatives, such as parents
9:12
or siblings. The next category concerns significant negative life events, especially during childhood
9:18
Studies have found that people with social anxiety often report having had difficult experiences
9:22
such as having been sexually abused, having moved between cities various times, which of course
9:28
comes along with changing schools and having had to adapt to new social environments, experiencing
9:32
their parents divorce or growing up in a hostile household with a lot of family conflict and then
9:38
also having a parent who suffers from a psychological affliction such as depression or having been ill
9:43
themselves for a prolonged period of time which may have come along with problems in the moment
9:47
of trying to rejoin their former social group and reconnecting with friends. Because there's a strong
9:52
correlation between such negative experiences and social anxiety disorder experts suspect that these
9:57
types of negative life events may contribute to the development of SAD. As I mentioned just a
10:02
moment ago, a lack of sufficient and adequate social skills may also increase a person's chances
10:06
to develop social anxiety. This makes sense, of course. Imagine a person who does not really know
10:11
how to properly interact with others and behave around them. Naturally, this leads to insecurity
10:16
in social situations. And if this insecurity passes a certain threshold, we speak of social
10:20
anxiety disorder. A couple of words here on the so-called social skills deficit. First of all
10:25
although most people with SAD evaluate their own social skills as bad or below average
10:29
The estimate of their own social performance is usually way off, meaning that many socially
10:34
anxious people tend to underestimate their social skills. That does clearly happen because of the
10:38
nature of social anxiety, which incentivizes affected people to question themselves rather
10:43
than being too confident in themselves, their abilities, and how they come across. It's just
10:47
a safer strategy if you want to avoid rejection and negative evaluation. Then people with social
10:52
phobia clearly overestimate the visibility of their anxiety symptoms, such as sweating, blushing
10:57
trembling or even an alleged insecure sound of their voice. I'm not saying that these things do
11:02
not happen. Of course they do for many people. I just want to point out that objective observers
11:07
do not notice these symptoms as much as people with SID tend to imagine. And this is one of the
11:12
reasons why socially anxious people tend to underestimate the impression they generate on
11:16
others. They may feel highly insecure and anxious so they assume that this is how everyone else must
11:21
be perceiving them. A great way to find out if a person actually lacks social skills is by asking
11:26
them if she or he knows how socially desirable or acceptable behavior would look like in a given
11:31
situation. For most people with SAD, the answer is yes, they do know. They may just be too overwhelmed
11:37
with their anxiety to engage in this behavior. Meaning that in these cases, patients do not need
11:41
to be educated about adequate social behavior. However, with that said, there are in fact people
11:46
who do lack social skills. In these cases, their missing sense of what adequate social behavior may
11:51
look like can contribute to the development of SAD. If you do not know how to behave around others
11:56
It is likely that you will make negative experiences in the social realm, which then
12:00
may lead to increased avoidance of social situations, which then impedes that you improve
12:04
your social skills and so on. It can quickly turn into a vicious cycle
12:08
In these cases, therapy should always include a component which is called social skills
12:12
training, which targets this deficit. Okay, the next category concerns cognitive biases, which basically refer to unfavorable
12:20
adverse, or harmful ways of thinking and directing our attention. I would like to point out here that not all experts think that these biases cause social
12:27
anxiety. However, virtually all of them agree that these biases play a role once social anxiety has
12:32
been developed. If you talk to a therapist who is trained in CBT, which means cognitive behavioral
12:37
therapy, Shiohi is likely going to tell you that these ways of thinking are causing your social
12:41
anxiety in the first place. And this point of view makes sense, keeping in mind that the theoretic
12:45
model of CBT is based on the premise that the way we think, meaning the content of our thoughts as
12:50
well as our thought processes affect the way we feel. For example, if you think that it is likely that you will make a fool of yourself in front
12:57
of others, this thought is likely going to lead to anxiety before and during this specific
13:01
social situation you are concerned about Likewise if you enter a social situation thinking that you will be able to generate a positive impression on others or you not even thinking about how you come across because it doesn really matter to you in this situation you will feel much more confident I think you getting
13:16
the idea here. So in essence, social anxiety may develop because a person has negative beliefs
13:21
about themselves, others, and the world. For example, thoughts and beliefs such as
13:25
I'm not good enough. Others will notice my flaws and ridicule me. I cannot stand it when others
13:30
think I'm weak or useless may lead to and maintain anxiety in social situations. People affected by
13:36
such thoughts often also engage in unhelpful ways of directing their attention such as being
13:41
hypervigilant to any signs of others noticing the anxiety or laughing at them or they may turn their
13:46
attention inwards trying to monitor how anxious they are and trying to control their anxiety which
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usually backfires and increases it even further. In CBT treatment these thoughts, beliefs and
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unfavorable ways of directing attention are targeted in an attempt to modify them
14:01
All right, we've made it to point nine on our list. This category concerns biological
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vulnerabilities. Let me point out first that research is ongoing in this area and that there's
14:10
still not enough evidence to prove that there are structural abnormalities in people with SAD
14:15
However, there are interesting findings that suggest that there are certain biological
14:19
differences in people with SAD, specifically in their brains and their neurophysiological
14:24
reactions in social situations. It has been found that people with social phobia exhibit a stronger
14:28
cortisol response as well as a higher heart rate reactivity when performing in front of an audience
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It has also been identified that their amygdala, which is a small brain area mainly responsible for
14:39
fear reactions, is activated to a greater extent when faced with certain social stimuli
14:44
such as angry faces or even faces with neutral expressions. And then there seem to be some
14:48
differences in the sensitivity of serotonin receptors, which have been associated with
14:53
increased anxiety and depression levels. It has also been reported that people with SAD have a
14:58
lower dopamine system activity, which makes sense as many socially anxious people have symptoms of
15:03
depression and low dopamine levels are associated with lower moods. While these findings are very
15:08
interesting, it is important to realize that there is no proof these biological differences
15:12
cause social anxiety disorder. It is entirely possible that it is the other way around with
15:16
SAD causing the biological differences to emerge. And then of course, these two may mutually
15:22
reinforce each other with certain biological vulnerabilities leading to increased fear in
15:26
social situations and this frequent fear increasing these biological vulnerabilities. It just can't be said with certainty yet. And our last category that can contribute to the
15:35
development of SID is the culture we grow up and live in. For example, if you live in an
15:39
individualistic culture, such as in the United States, Canada, or most parts of Europe, you know
15:44
that these cultures value confidence and extroversion. Being insecure, reserved, or introverted is
15:49
unfortunately not much appreciated in these societies. It is easy to understand how this
15:54
can affect people who are this way. Many of them will judge themselves and try to change the way
15:58
they are to meet society's expectations. And this non-acceptance of who and how they are does
16:04
inevitably cause them a great deal of suffering. If you grow up and live in a collectivist culture
16:08
such as typically found in Asian countries such as Japan, China, or Korea, being reserved and
16:13
introverted is less judged than in Western society. However, you may experience social
16:18
anxiety in situations in which you may offend others or make them feel bad. This phenomenon is
16:22
called taijinkyo fushou, a type of social anxiety predominantly found in Asian countries, especially
16:27
in Japan. In collectivist societies, breaking social norms is often seen as very rude and selfish
16:33
and being overly extroverted and outgoing is usually not much appreciated or desired. This
16:38
of course, can heavily influence how a person feels about themselves, others, and about being
16:42
around them. However, this does not mean that the culture a person lives in causes social anxiety
16:47
but it can certainly play a contributing role in its development. All right, now you're up to date
16:51
with the state of the science regarding the causes of social anxiety disorder. If you want a similar overview
16:56
of the science on psychotherapy for SAD, I recommend you read our ebook
17:00
which introduces you to more than a dozen therapeutic approaches that have been shown
17:03
to be effective in reducing social anxiety symptoms. In the description, you will find a link
17:08
which takes you to our website to access it in case you wanna check it out. Also, feel free to share in the comments
17:13
the factors you think played a role in the development of your social phobia. Thank you for watching and for your attention
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