Chapter 3.2 All Anxiety is Not the Same

Experiencing some form of anxiety is a normal part of the communication process.
Most people are anxious about being evaluated by an audience.
Many people assume that their nervousness is an experience unique to them.

Not all anxiety is the same.
Researchers have investigated the differences between apprehension grounded in personality characteristics and anxiety prompted by a particular situation at a particular time.
Four types of communication apprehension:
- Trait
- Context
- Audience
- Situation

Some people are just more disposed to communication apprehension than others.
Trait anxiety measures how people generally feel across situations and time periods.
Some people feel more uncomfortable than the average person regardless of the context, audience, or situation.
Those with high trait anxiety are more likely to avoid exposure to public speaking situations, so their nervousness might be compounded by lack of experience or skill.
People who experience trait anxiety may never like public speaking, but through preparation and practice, they can learn to give effective public speeches when they need to do so.

Context anxiety refers to anxiety prompted by specific communication contexts.
Major context factors that can heighten this form of anxiety are formality, uncertainty, and novelty.
- Formality: As the formality of the communication context increases, the stakes are raised, sometimes prompting more apprehension. Certain communication contexts, such as a press conference or a courtroom can make even the most confident individuals nervous because these communication contexts presuppose an adversarial relationship between the speaker and some audience members.
- Uncertainty: It is hard to predict and control the flow of information in such contexts, so the level of uncertainty is high. This can be similar to the feeling on the first day of class with a new instructor.
- Novelty: Anxiety becomes more of an issue in communication environments that are new. Most people can learn through practice to cope with their anxiety prompted by formal, uncertain, and novel communication contexts.
Classroom contexts are not adversarial, and practice reduces novelty and uncertainty.

Audience anxiety describes communication apprehension prompted by specific audience characteristics.
Characteristics include similarity, subordinate status, audience size, and familiarity.
- Similarity: The degree of perceived similarity between you and your audience can influence your level of speech anxiety. The more dissimilar we are to our audience members, the more likely we are to be nervous.
- Subordinate Status: Talking in front of your boss or a teacher may be intimidating, especially if you are being evaluated.
- Audience Size: The larger the audience, the more threatening it may seem.
- Familiarity: Some prefer talking to strangers; others feel more nervous in front of an audience of friends and family because there is more pressure to perform well.

Situational anxiety is the communication apprehension created by the unique combination of influences generated by audience, time, and context (McCroskey, 2001, p. 43).
Each event involves several dimensions: physical, temporal, social-psychological, and cultural.
These dimensions combine to create a unique communication situation that is different from any previous communication event.
- Example: Presentation at a general faculty meeting on general education assessment. The audience was familiar but relatively large. The topic was controversial. The meeting occurred late on a Friday afternoon and the speaker's presentation was scheduled more than an hour into the meeting. All these factors combined to produce situational anxiety.

Communication apprehension stems from many sources, including the speaker's personality characteristics, communication context, nature of the audience, or situation.
Many factors exaggerate communication apprehension.
Formality, familiarity, novelty, perceived similarity, and subordinate status are a few of the factors that influence our tendency to feel anxious while speaking.