Understanding Social Anxiety: A Recovery Guide for Sufferers, Family, and Friends by Vera Sonja Maass Ph.D

Author:Vera Sonja Maass Ph.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: ABC-CLIO

Another Look at Psychological Hardiness

As discussed in chapter 3, the psychologically hardy mind operates on a belief system of commitment that persistence in goals will bring some results, that some control is possible in most situations, and that negative events can be turned around in some positive directions. By contrast, the lack of psychological hardiness leaves individuals with the conviction that the pain cannot be endured, whatever the goals in the situation might have been, that the individual is powerless in the situation, and that everything related to the situation will be negative with no possibility that the person can change it.

This generally defeatist attitude will prevail not only in situations that involve social interactions and the resulting anxiety but in every other stressful situation as well because the possibility of pain or discomfort will set the general mental-emotional process in action.

As soon as the possibility of a painful situation appears on the horizon, the defeatist belief system takes over, inducing the individual to avoid the situation at all costs. In turn, every act of avoidance makes the anxiety and the belief system grow stronger. Because the worst (death, humiliation, etc.) has not occurred, the individual thinks, “I must have done the correct thing by avoiding the situation.” In other words, in the socially anxious individual’s mind, the absence of the feared disaster is interpreted as evidence that avoidance was the correct action.

Sometimes individuals go so far as to distort information to feel justified in their avoidance behaviors. For instance, when Jason (discussed above) met with a psychologist, he hesitatingly admitted that he had told himself that setting up appointments with prospective insurance business customers was primarily for the business to make money, and it was the agents’ responsibility to convince the customers to purchase insurance that they may not even need. Thus, describing to himself his job and his employer’s intentions in a negative light made it easier for him to avoid calling customers or failing to appear at scheduled meetings with prospective customers. With this line of reasoning, he finally convinced himself that it was immoral to work in that line of business, and he could not possibly perform such immoral acts, thus working out a perfectly acceptable excuse to quit his job.

In the end, psychological hardiness is the determining factor of whether a person will decide to work on reducing the feared anxiety.

Considering fear as possessing the functional properties of a drive, as was suggested long ago by drive-reduction theorists, it can be understood that when a person is faced with a threatening situation or information about it, the person, motivated by the fear, will search for responses that reduce the threat.13

When a suggested protective action (persuasion to act) is successful in reducing the fear, the action is reinforced and can become part of the person’s permanent response repertoire. But when the recommended action fails to reduce the level of fear, because it is perceived either to be ineffective or to be impossible to do, defensive reactions may be used to reduce the fear.

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