Synonyms
Definition
Social anxiety disorder is a marked fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which the individual is exposed to possible scrutiny and negative evaluation of others. The social situations almost always provoke fear or anxiety, and the social situations are avoided or endured with intense fear or anxiety (American Psychiatric Association 2013).
Introduction
Other people have been our primary psychological selection forces. As species, hominins were selected socially and sexually, and as such, other people have both been our primary competitors and our greatest resources. We are therefore especially interested in evaluating other people, considering their emotional states, their personality traits, and considering what resources or threats they might be for us.
The need to socially belong is one of the fundamental human motivations (Baumeister and Leary 1995). Hence, we would expect the evolution of psychological...
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References
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Kennair, L.E.O., Kleppestø, T.H. (2018). Social Anxiety. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_694-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_694-1
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