Treating Public Speaking

Anxiety
By: Kayla Lord

Public Speaking Anxiety

Public speaking anxiety, formally known as glossophobia, is a
common problem that many adolescents face. This is
problematic because adolescents are typically students that
are required to speak publically in class.
Public speaking anxiety is a form of social anxiety that is most
commonly treated with exposure to the feared situation, also
known as practice. It can also be treated with psychotherapy,
which helps the individual talk through their fear.
I am particularly interested in this topic because I am a CAS
major and I work at the Undergraduate Speaking Center, so, I
help people deal with the symptoms of speech anxiety quite
often.

 Hypotheses: The effect of dosed exposure on successfully treating

public speaking anxiety depends upon the level of psychotherapy
treatment.
Design:
o This study has a 3 (exposure type: dosed, prolonged, and control) X
2 (psychotherapy treatment: once a week, and control) between
subjects factorial design, with public speaking anxiety as the
dependent variable.
o Public speaking anxiety is the conceptual dependent variable that
will be operationalized into participants scores on the PRPSA (most
commonly used measure of public speaking anxiety).
o Those in the dosed exposure group will speak on topics of their
choice to an audience for 30 seconds on and off for 10 minutes while
those in the prolonged exposure group will speak for 10 minutes
straight. Each group will do this one a day, every three days, for a
month. Those in the control group will be on a wait-list for treatment.
Those that receive psychotherapy will see a therapist once a week
during the exposure treatment period. Those in the control group will
be on a wait-list for treatment.

 Results: I expect there to be a negative main effect

of exposure treatment: increased exposure will
cause decreased symptoms. I also expect there to
be a negative main effect of psychotherapy
treatment: receiving treatment will cause a decrease
in symptoms. Most importantly, I expect there to be
an interaction between exposure treatment and
psychotherapy treatment. The effect of exposure will
depend upon receiving psychotherapy treatment. I
expect that dosed exposure paired with
psychotherapy treatment once a week will cause the
largest decrease in the symptoms of public speaking
anxiety.

Average PRPSA score

Graph: Scores on the PRPSA can range from 34-170

with less than 98 indicating low anxiety, and greater than
131 indicating high anxiety. 98-131 is considered the mid
range, indicating moderate anxiety.
150
100
50
0
Dosed

Prolonged

Once a week

Control

Control