A Comparison of Ultra-Brief Cognitive Defusion and Positive Affirmation Interventions on the Reduction of Public Speakin
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A Comparison of Ultra-Brief Cognitive Defusion and Positive Affirmation Interventions on the Reduction of Public Speaking Anxiety Chloe Brandrick 1 & Nic Hooper 2 & Bryan Roche 3 & Jonathan Kanter 4 & Ian Tyndall 1 Accepted: 30 August 2020 # Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
Abstract The present study examined the preliminary efficacy of an ultra-brief cognitive defusion intervention, compared to a positive selfaffirmation intervention, on moderate subclinical Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA). Sixty-three participants (M = 25.70 years,, SD = 9.48) first completed a questionnaire assessing PSA symptomology and were then randomly assigned to receive one of two interventions (cognitive defusion, positive self-affirmation) or nothing at all (no-treatment control). All participants then performed an impromptu speech task before recompleting the questionnaire. A significant decrease in PSA was reported within the cognitive defusion condition, relative to the positive self-affirmation and no-treatment control conditions. An ultra-brief cognitive defusion intervention has the potential to reduce short-term anxiety among those with moderate PSA. Keywords Public speaking anxiety . Defusion . Self-affirmation
The fear of public speaking, or public speaking anxiety (PSA), is a context-dependent social anxiety occurring during real or imagined enactment of oral speeches, such as presentations and interviews (Bodie, 2010; Niles & Craske, 2019). PSA usually results in maladaptive behaviors such as a quivering voice, shaking knees, being at a loss for words and overestimating the extent to which one is negatively evaluated by an audience (Beatty, 1988; Savitsky & Gilovich, 2003; Shi, Brinthaup, & McCree, 2015). As a result, PSA tends to hinder the ability to focus, think clearly, form sentences, or utter speech with adequate volume and direction (Voncken & Bögels, 2008). As such, it is unsurprising that the speech performance of individuals with PSA is classed as being significantly poorer than those without it (Hofmann, Gerlach, Wender, & Roth, 1997). * Ian Tyndall [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, University of Chichester, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 6PE, UK
2
Department of Psychology, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
3
Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, Kildare, Ireland
4
Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Although PSA is diverse in its manifestations, it has been reported that it is the most widespread social anxiety (Furmark, Tillfors, Stattin, Ekselius, & Frederickson, 2000; Stein, Walker, & Forde, 1996; Tillfors & Furmark, 2007) and is believed to affect 33% of the U.S. population at a clinical level (Ruscio, Brown, Sareen, Stein, & Kessler, 2008). However, given that the distress associated with PSA lies on a continuum ranging from mild to severely debilitating (Bögels et al., 2010), it has been estimated that 63% of the general population also report the fear (Marinho, de Mederios, Gama, & Teixeira, 2017)
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