ABSTRACT
SOCIAL anxiety is an unadaptive emotional reaction which is evoked by the behaviour, attitudes, or appearance of other people. In many instances the anxiety reaction is of a generalized nature and can be aroused by any member of a particular category of people, e.g. authoritarian figures, females, and so on. In extreme cases, the patient may experience social anxiety in the presence of all but a very few trusted and intimate friends or relations. Fear of people may affect the patient's behaviour in diverse ways ranging from agoraphobia (see Lazarus and Rachman, 1960) to homosexuality (see Wolpe and Stevenson, 1960), and many inter-personal problems, when subjected to an analysis in terms of learning theory, resolve themselves into problems of social anxiety.
