Author Archives: Kathleen Holman

Social Anxiety Disorder

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Social Anxiety can be very misunderstood in today’s society. I believe that Social Anxiety is one of those disorders that can’t be fully understood unless you’ve experienced some of the symptoms yourself at some point in time. Social anxiety is marked by one having an overwhelming sense of worry and self-consciousness about everyday social situations. Most people with this disorder have fears centered around if their actions will cause them embarrassment or not. Sometimes these fears can go above and beyond and cause panic attacks related to social interactions.
I happen to have a friend from high school with this disorder, and from my experiences dealing with her I feel I’ve grown to know the disorder better than most average students. For the sake of anonymity let’s call this friend “Sue”. I met Sue in the ninth grade, but it probably took me until about half way through the year to become friends with her. I honestly had no idea she had this disorder for the longest time. One day we decided to go to the mall and she found a top she really liked, but it was a size too big. I told her to just go up to the desk and ask if they had one in a smaller size, but she kept saying no, and asked if we could just look around for it. We looked for about thirty minutes, and at that point I was getting annoyed and was badgering her to just ask the sales clerk. At that point we were in a back corner of the store and she literally just broke down and began sobbing and saying she couldn’t ask the sales clerk, it was just too much, and she would think she was stupid for asking. After this incident we went back to her house and her mother and her explained her condition to me.
She had, had a panic attack in the mall because she was really that afraid of talking to the sales clerk. It turns out she had been diagnosed with this disorder in the seventh grade. She has an incredible fear of talking to people she doesn’t know and most situations she needs to bring people she’s comfortable with her to talk to someone so she can have the support. Her treatment includes therapy (which has more effect now that she’s comfortable with her therapist) and some medications.
Social Anxiety isn’t understood by a lot of people, many tend to just tell those suffering with it to “get over themselves” and talk to whoever it is they need to. This same friend recently started college, and has a roommate who does not understand the disorder. Her roommate constantly tells her to get out of her room and hang out with people because “it’s getting ridiculous”. But Sue’s fear of meeting new people is really that intense, I’ve witnessed firsthand how bad it can get.

Monocular Cues

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Back in the day, I was an aspiring artist; I tried my best to be better than everyone else, because what middle school student doesn’t want to be the best? Every single time I took my newest drawing to the art teacher though, she’d tell me that my work was flat and had no dimension, nothing popped out. She’d always try and show me how if I drew the duck, or mailbox really big in the front it would be like it was closer, and the smaller things were in the background, that would mean they were farther away. I never quite grasped the concept but instead of asking questions I’d just smile and move on and grumble about how she didn’t know what art was. All of the techniques she was trying to show me though, I now recognize as Monocular cues, which consist of cues for perceiving depth in the world. Drawing the duck larger than the things in the background? Well that was going along with relative size! I remember for one art project we had to draw skyscrapers. And myself, thinking I was just as good as Leonardo DaVinci or Rembrandt, drew a large rectangle on the paper. My art teacher, Mrs. Clark, almost immediately took it to the front of the class and explained that’s exactly what NOT to do. (My little middle school heart was broken that day). She explained that the taller the building got, the more we should taper it in so it looks like we’re looking up at the top of the building. And know, with all of my knowledge, I recognize she was utilizing linear perspective so that our pictures would look like the top of the building was really far away. She taught us many other art techniques, none of which really caught on with me. But now that I am versed in monocular cues I can appreciate the good artistic abilities she was trying to impart on us students, regardless of the fact that I still haven’t been able to draw them all too well.

Naturalistic Observations

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Naturalistic observations are those made in a subjects real environment and setting. These are especially useful in Psychology to observe a subjects natural response to stimuli because the subject will act as they normally would in real life. This type of observation is useful because in a lab setting a subject may be more likely to do things they normally wouldn’t do due to the uncomfortable environment. However, one of the drawbacks is that if someone figures out they are being watched they can change their behavior.

As a Music Education major, one has almost no time to just sit down and relax. A Music Education student takes on Average 23 credits a semester and the workload can get pretty intense. One of the few times I get to just sit down is in symphonic band rehearsal when the director is working on a specific section I don’t play flute in for a long time. I tend to people watch when this happens.  The other day I was watching two friends from across the band room make faces at each other because they too, were not being rehearsed. They went back and forth for a long time and I was able to “naturally observe” what their behaviorisms are like when they have downtime during rehearsal. They alternated contorting their faces for a while, and sometimes making wild hand gestures (such as flapping their arms out and wiggling their fingers). At the end though, I made eye contact with one of them and they immediately stopped making faces (most likely due to embarrassment). This relates to one of the naturalistic observations disadvantages, the subject changes behavior once they know they are being watched. It’s a shame they stopped it was quite entertaining! Because of my position in the band room I was able to see how these two friends naturally “converse” with each other and watch their behaviorisms where they would naturally occur. I’m sure if you put these two and a few other band members into a lab room with a two-way mirror they wouldn’t be goofing off so much, so being in the band room shows how they really act!