The Effects of Very Brief Exposure on Behavioral Symptoms of Fear of Public Speaking

Abstract In prior studies, very brief exposure (VBE) has been shown to reduce phobic avoidance of a tarantula by participants with arachnophobia (Siegel, Anderson, & Han, 2011; Siegel & Weinberger, 2009, 2012). The present study builds on prior research by testing whether VBE can also be effective in reducing phobic avoidance in individuals with the fear of public speaking. Twenty-one phobic participants were recruited using the Public Speaking Anxiety Scale (Bartholomay & Houlihan, 2016), and a baseline public speaking Behavioral Avoidance Test (BAT) to confirm their self-reported fear. One week after the initial BAT, phobic participants were randomly assigned into one of two exposure conditions, either VBE to masked angry faces (VBE-A), or control exposure to masked flowers (VBF). Immediately after exposure, participants took part in the post-exposure BAT. During both the pre-and post-exposure BAT the experimenter rated the participants anxiety on the Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) from 0-10, based on a variety of physical indicators of anxiety such as eye contact (or lack there-of), blushing, sweating, and stuttering. Participants were also asked to report how anxious they felt, on the same scale. It was hypothesized that participants in the VBE-A condition would show a greater reduction in their avoidance behavior, relative to control, as measured by how long they spoke. Because socially phobic participants are excessively self-critical, it was also hypothesized that they would self-report much higher SUDS scores than the experimenter observing them. The results indicated that phobic participants who received VBE-A showed a greater reduction in their avoidance compared to those who received control exposure to masked flowers (VBF). These findings suggest that VBE can also be effective in reducing phobic avoidance in those who fear public speaking. It was also shown that socially anxious participants self-reported being significantly more anxious than they were rated to be by the experimenter observing them, regardless of VBE-A or VBF. These results imply that even though participants may have improved in their performance, they were still self-critical as a result of their social anxiety.