The number one fear is often cited as glossophobia: the fear of public speaking. Whether you call it stage anxiety, stage fright, or performance anxiety, we can all probably relate to this feeling to some extent or another! This phenomenon is related, but distinct from social phobia – also known as social anxiety disorder – a fear of a variety of social situations that affects many people.
Though phobias are common and can be quite debilitating, the good news is they are treatable! Exposure therapy in an appropriate setting, moving at a reasonable pace, has helped many people challenge a myriad of fears. In this article, however, the focus will be on general performance anxiety that most people can identify with. Phobias often require specialized treatment, though tips and tricks can certainly help many people. This article explores the psychology at play behind the common performance anxiety that most people experience. And once we understand its psychology, we can explore strategies to mitigate this common, yet potentially debilitating phenomenon.
The first element to explore is what’s known in psychology as The audience effect. This framework, simply put, describes how people’s behaviour changes when they know (or even think) someone else is watching them. It can range from a simple adjustment, to completely changing how you complete a task. Think of sitting at a desk during school or work – if your teacher or boss walks in the room, you probably sit up a little straighter and try to look a little busier! The audience effect is a largely unconscious influence, but it affects us all every day. It gives us the base of other phenomena at play that can help explain stage fright.
The audience effect is driven by two factors: social inhibition and social facilitation. When doing a task, you may fumble when you have an audience. This is social inhibition; you are inhibited from performing due to another person watching you. Conversely, social facilitation is when your performance improves when you feel eyes on you. Think of famous musicians; they often perform their best when in front of an encouraging crowd.
Psychology experiments have identified an important element influencing social facilitation and inhibition: the complexity of the task. When people were given something easy to do, social facilitation boosted their performance and they did better when someone was watching them than when they did the task alone. For a complex task, however, performance decreased in the presence of an audience because social inhibition tripped up the participants.
One famous study examined the difference in performance on complex tasks with professional athletes. The researchers found that, like anyone else, the athletes performed worse at a complex task that they had never done before. When performing their sport, however, the audience effect worked in their favour and social facilitation made them perform even better with an audience. The researchers attributed this distinction to practice. Professional athletes are very practiced, making complex tasks seem simple to them, meaning social facilitation is at play more than social inhibition.
Keeping in mind the mechanisms of the audience effect, social facilitation, and social inhibition, we can start to understand stage fright and what can be done about it!
Something to remember is that social facilitation and inhibition both use anxiety to function. The audience effect creates stress in your body when you are performing in front of a crowd, regardless of the situation. The sympathetic nervous system is turned on, also known as the fight or flight response. Your body prepares you for stress in many ways, including an increased heart rate and secretion of glucose into your blood. While this physical jolt may help an athlete beat a world record at the Olympics, too much of this response will negatively influence your ability to perform. You can mitigate the sympathetic nervous system response in a few ways, both in the moment and ahead of time. Getting plenty of rest, spending time in nature, and meditating are practices that can calm the sympathetic nervous system long-term. In the moment, taking slow, deep breaths can help calm your stress response along with humming or reciting a mantra, putting cold water on your body, and systematically tensing and relaxing your muscles.
Another strategy can be gleaned from the professional athlete study: practice! Since we understand the psychology at play, we can look at this example and conclude that the more we practice a complex task, the more social facilitation will improve our performance when we have to step in front of an audience. So if you are afraid of public speaking, the best way to overcome that fear is to face it head on and practice it. Giving a speech that feels brand new will be like the experimenters giving a complex task to the research participants. In this scenario, the performance will be worse in front of an audience. However, if you are well versed in the script, you will be like the professional athletes performing even better when observed – because you know your craft.
The final strategy is acceptance. It may not be a glamorous fix-all to the problem, but once embraced, it can make all the difference in how you face performance anxiety. Sometimes, no matter how calm we feel or how much we’ve practiced, we can still bomb! It’s important to recognize that life is going to be full of ups and downs, and things just don’t work out the way we hope sometimes. On the positive side… it probably felt worse than it looked! Think back to a time you watched a friend fail. You probably didn’t dwell on it very long or very seriously, and other people do the same when you make mistakes. We are often our own worst critics, but others do not replay your missteps over in their head – and you shouldn’t either!
While stage anxiety is an incredibly common fear, we understand the mechanisms behind it. Once you understand The audience effect, social inhibition, and social facilitation, you can take steps to address the elements that will challenge your performance and use strategies to improve it. So practice lots and take it easy – you’re going to do great!