Mental or behavioral acts that reduce anxiety in social situations, such as avoiding eye contact or rehearsing sentences before speaking are called ________.
Question 32 options:
obsessions
ruminations
safety behaviors
cognitive restructures
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Correct Answer: Safety behaviors
Explanation:
In the context of social anxiety and related mental health conditions, safety behaviors are mental or behavioral strategies that individuals use to prevent feared outcomes or reduce anxiety in social situations. These behaviors may include avoiding eye contact, rehearsing sentences before speaking, tightly controlling one’s speech or body language, or holding back from expressing opinions. Although they may temporarily reduce anxiety, safety behaviors actually maintain and even exacerbate social anxiety in the long run.
The reason safety behaviors are counterproductive is that they prevent individuals from learning that feared social situations are not inherently dangerous. For example, someone who avoids eye contact might never learn that maintaining it does not necessarily lead to judgment or rejection. These behaviors also often lead to self-fulfilling prophecies: when someone is overly focused on rehearsing what to say, they may come across as unnatural or distant, which can then reinforce their belief that others are judging them.
Safety behaviors differ from obsessions and ruminations. Obsessions are intrusive, unwanted thoughts, often seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Ruminations involve repetitive, passive focus on distressing symptoms or problems and are more common in depression. Cognitive restructures, on the other hand, are therapeutic techniques used in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to challenge and modify distorted thinking patterns—not behaviors that people naturally adopt to reduce anxiety.
In treating social anxiety disorder, one of the goals of CBT is to help individuals identify and gradually eliminate safety behaviors. This is done through exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring, allowing individuals to build confidence and reduce reliance on these anxiety-reducing strategies.
In summary, safety behaviors are the actions or mental strategies people use to cope with anxiety in social situations, and although they may seem helpful, they can reinforce anxiety over time.
