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Communication apprehension is the level of anxiety triggered by the real or anticipated communication act, as defined by McCroskey. It is connected to the idea of judgment from the audience, and self-image. Communication apprehension, CA, can cause a variety of involuntary responses such as "stomach butterflies", shaking, nausea, sweating, forgetting the information, among many others. The term communication apprehension is usually connected with 'stage fright' ; however, this response is not necessarily connected with a delivery on a stage or in front of a large audience. This anxiety can be caused by any of the five forms of communication: intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, public, and mass communication.

Types of Communication Apprehension

There are different types of communication apprehension, each of these types represent a specific or general situation that present a stimuli for this anxiety response. McCroskey argues that there are four types of communication apprehension:

Trait anxiety

Trait anxiety is consider a personality type, which represents that the individual has an orientation to feel anxiety during the communication act regardless of the situation, audience or context. This type of people will avoid exposing themselves to a communication situation, since their communication apprehension is part of their daily behavior.

McCroskey and Beatty, argue that some people have a higher vulnerability factor for communication apprehension due to genetics, also known as communibiology. Many researchers oppose this idea and argue that it can not be solely inherited but rather a personality trait acquired; therefore, it can be changed. However, they can compromise that around 80% of communication apprehension is obtain within our neurological structures, which are determined genetically. Furthermore, only 20% is influenced by an environmental stimuli. Meaning that this type of communication apprehension can be improved with practice and other techniques; however, it will not be completely eliminated since it is inherited.

Context anxiety

Context anxiety triggers communication apprehension due to an specific context. This is consider a psychological response caused by a specific context but not necessarily on others; a person can have no problem talking to her best friend but can get anxiety while talking in front of a class. The most known example for context anxiety is public speaking; almost 70% of students suffer from a certain level of communication apprehension trigger by public speaking. The are other contexts that can create a similar response like speaking in front of class, small group discussions, or meetings.

Audience anxiety

Audience anxiety is when a specific individual or group of people creates a problem on communication, or a reverse reaction. For some people, anxiety can be cause by familiar peers, while for others it can be cause by unfamiliar faces. At the beginning of a speech class, the students tend to be fearful since they see new facesm which increases the levels of communication apprehension. However, once the students get to know each other they feel comfortable; decreasing or eliminating their levels of apprehension.

Situation anxiety

Situational anxiety is a psychological reaction of a person due to an specific situation that may not have any relation with the person or context. This anxiety is triggered by a special combination of audience and context that involves different dimensions and creates a unique scenario. As an example we can see a first date. Although a person may not suffer from communication apprehension; the situation of being with a person that they have feelings for, on a new environment, and being the first time they experience this situation, can increase the stress levels and create communication apprehension.

PRCA

The PRCA 10 is a test created to determine the communication shyness of a speaker. This test shows that communication apprehension is not limited to public speaking since it allows you to identify different situations that can trigger anxiety, these situations belong to a apprehension triggered by context, context anxiety. The four situations that are presented on the test are: group discussion, meetings, interpersonal, and public speaking.

This test provides an easy equation to obtain a score for each category, these scores are compare to the ranges provided at the end of the test; these ranges were obtained by a study of over 40,000 college students and over 3,000 non-students adults provided on a national sample. By this comparison, the test taker can determine their level of communication apprehension for each scenario, ranking them with a low, moderate or high level of apprehension. The test is able to provide a diagnostic of context anxiety and overall communication apprehension by simply adding the sub scores and comparing the total score.

Prevention and treatment

• Cognitive restructuring
• Systematic desensitization
• Skills training for teachers and for sufferers
• Visualization

1. Holbrook, Hilary Taylor. "Communication Apprehension: The Quiet Student in Your Classroom". ERIC Digest. 1987. ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication skills Urbana IL. November 2, 2008. <http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-926/quiet.htm>

2. Brandy, Cathy. "Speech Anxiety: Facing the Fear". November 4, 2008.

..

4. = 5 http://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/chapter/3-1-what-is-communication-apprehension/

6. http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/publications/bookchapters/007_1986_C21.pdf

7. http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/publications/101.pdf

8. Witt, P. L., Brown, K. C., Roberts, J. B., Weisel, J., Sawyer, C., & Behnke, R. (2006, March). Somatic anxiety patterns before, during and after giving a public speech. Southern Communication Journal, 71, 87–100.

9.http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/publications/bookchapters/006_1984.pdf

10. http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/publications/bookchapters/003_1984_C1.pdf

Notes & Critiques.

Critique by Fundamentals of Speech Communication Student This article is fairly neutral; however, it is not supported with enough references. There is a lack of citations throughout the article. Specially if we analyze the "History" segment, where there is only one citation to support seven paragraphs of information. If we examine "Overview", the third paragraph is deviating from the actual meaning of public speaking and providing an example that does not fit on an overview. Providing irrelevant information, when the efforts could have been more productively used to extend on Lasswell's Model of Communication or even add a segment focused on strategies for public speaking. If we analyze the "Tools" segments, we are able to identify that a more accurate tittle would be "Technology's impact on Public Speaking". Since it mainly focuses on how technology has change the tools that we use for public speaking.

Angela.P.E (talk) 03:51, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION

1. BEVAN, JENNIFER L. "Interpersonal Communication Apprehension, Topic Avoidance, and the Experience of Irritable Bowel Syndrome." Personal Relationships, vol. 16, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 147-165. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2009.01216.x.

2. Russ, Travis L. “The Relationship Between Communication Apprehension and Learning Preferences in an Organizational Setting.” LINCCWeb Catalog Search, Journal of Business Communication, journals.sagepub.com.db19.linccweb.org/doi/full/10.1177/0021943612456035#articleCitationDownloadContainer.

3.Reich, Jonathan M. Public Speaking. Place of publication not identified: Goldhil Home Media International, 2005.

4. BYRNE, MARANN1, et al. "A Qualitative Exploration of Oral Communication Apprehension." Accounting Education, vol. 21, no. 6, Dec. 2012, pp. 565-581. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/09639284.2012.725636.

5. Roby, Douglas E. "Teacher Leadership Skills: An Analysis of Communication Apprehension." Education, vol. 129, no. 4, Summer2009, pp. 608-614. EBSCOhost, db19.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=40310133&site=ehost-live.

Article Plan

This Wikipedia article on ‘Communication Apprehension’ provides a vague definition of the term. One of the major changes that I will start making is to expand the definition, by adding sources. Do an overview of the evolution of the term, and the studies that have been able to provide data for this anxiety. I will be modifying the content of the article to Definition, Influencing factors, Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24), Prevention and treatment, and references. I have been able to find some sources regarding the factors that have a direct influence on communication anxiety, which I will add to support the information that is already on the article, I will also rearrange the information to make it clear for the audience. The influencing factors segment will have an introductions and bullet points to name the main factors that play a role on communication apprehension, as well as a short explanation of them. Some of those influencing factors argued by McCroskey, J.C. on An introduction to rhetorical communication are: Trait Anxiety, Context Anxiety, Audience Anxiety, and Situation Anxiety. Trait Anxiety sustains that some people suffer from anxiety prior, during, and after giving a public speech; regardless of the content, situation, or audience. These people will never feel comfortable in these situations. Context Anxiety is when the speaker is presented to a new audience and does not feel comfortable with the new environment, which triggers the anxiety. Audience Anxiety when a “new type of audience” is added, the speaker feels uncomfortable and suffer from anxiety. Even though the speaker may be used to speaking to his peers, when a professor is added into the audience they have difficulty to express themselves. Situational anxiety is the combination of audience, time and context that create a situation that triggers anxiety. These characteristics create a new communication situation from all previous experiences. The next section will be on Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24), this is a test created to diagnose the Communication Apprehension, which also creates categories of communication apprehension. I will provide information on the process and the research behind the creating of this test and also add a link to the test itself. On Prevention and treatment, I will research sources to support the bullet points given, as well as elaborating on them. I will also add some other preventions mechanisms that have more credible sources. I am also trying to add the effect of self-esteem and language barriers; however, I am still doing research that will back up those concepts and their relations as Influencing Factors. I will modify and restructure the sentences on the article to make the segments easy to read by creating bullet points. On the segment influencing factors I will reword the segment since it has some complex words that do not make it accessible. Overall, I need to find more references to support the information that is already being provided on the article, I will eliminate the second reference since I am not able to find the author on any of the browsing mechanism and I will add a variety of sources to that have the same perspective on the topic. Most of the information found so far are peer review journals, which will be my main source of information.