Personal Factors of Social Anxiety Among Students

Abstract

In this article empirical research of personal factors of social anxiety among students of a higher educational institution is carried out. There were involved 287 students of 1–4 cources in the empirical research.  Social anxiety was diagnosed with the help of methods «Scale of assessment of social phobia» (SPRS) and «Scale of social phobia» (SPIN). The results of empirical research indicate that more than third part of students (38%) have a moderate and high level of social anxiety, which manifests itself as cognitive distortions and special behavioral strategies. The results of the research made it possible to fully implement the «here and now» principle, which was embodied in the definition of specific cognitive behavioral features at the moment of the study and which are important for stabilizing the mental states of students and reducing discomfort in social situations. At the same time, for the complex work with social anxiety, the destruction of its roots in the form of personal reasons that can aggravate this anxiety in different periods of life, we consider it necessary to further study this situation taking into account personal factors. It was revealed that the most personal factors are represented in the factor structure of high level social anxiety, which testifies to the unlawfulness of studying social anxiety only at the level of current behavioral manifestations, but requires deepening into the personal entities that give rise to this social anxiety. It is noteworthy that insecurity, emotional lability, conformality and conservatism often hinder effective psychological work aimed at reducing social anxiety, since work on destructive, unique or hypercompensating behavioral strategies does not affect the intimate personality factors associated with cognitive distortions. In our opinion, these ones support the cycle of existence of social anxiety, from which the person can not come out. Prospects for the research are the development of a cognitive-behavioral program for working with people who have social anxiety.