Stage fright: The effects of audience types on public speaking anxiety moderated by expectancy bias

• Main Authors: Bayang, David Benjamin P., Ghosh, Matthew Philip D., Talaro., Rudolf Love V., Velasco, Hal Jordan S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Speech anxiety; Performance anxiety; Stage fright; Social phobia; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/8957
• Institution: De La Salle University

The common struggle of students is to recite in front of the class wherein they are evaluated by their audience and are affected by their internal bias toward thir skill to perform. This is a form of public speaking anxiety (PSA) that inhibits the quality of the performance. The researchers examined the effects of different types of audiences and expectancy bias as cause of variations of PSA levels. The types of audience that the study tested were friends which is expected to have the lowest PSA, strangers which was expected to have medium to high PSA, and experts which was expected to have the highest PSA. The individual's negative expentancy bias would also moderate either an increase or decrease of PSA levels .A 3 x 2 between subject experimental design was conducted wherein the types of audience is moderated by expectancy bias that leads to an increse or decrease of PSA. The study employed deception to manipulate conditions for evaluation apprehension as embodied by the types of audience along with a measurement for negative expectancy bias for each participant. A total of 95 undergraduate students were gathered for the study. The researchers utilized ANCOVA to determine if the interactions effect of audience and expectancy predict PSA while controlling for trait anxiety. Result for all hypotheses were found to be non-significant. However, using an alternative measure for PSA (i.e. post-anxiety induction state) found to have main effects of both the types of audience and expectancy bias but not their interactions using ANOVA. After controlling for trait anxiety, types of audience remained its effect but not the expectancy bias.