单选题
Social anxiety, in its many forms, is epidemic. Nearly one in four men and one in eight women report high anxiety when going out on a date, while a third of men and almost a half of women report such feelings at dances and discotheques. And the most frequent fear in one survey of 3,000 adults was found to be speaking before a group.
"Social anxiety can be the surface sign of much deeper psychological conflicts, such as hidden hostility or guilt," said Seymour Epstein, a clinical psychologist, who has been writing extensively on anxiety and personality.
There have long been people who complained of social anxiety, as well those who have sought to cure the problem. Lately there has been a mushrooming of serious research by social psychologists on the topic, and new clinical treatments offered for those who view ordinary social contacts as dangerous and threatening.
Not all self-consciousness leads to social anxiety, in the view of Arnold Buss, one of the first psychologists to study the phenomenon. The garden variety self-consciousness, Dr. Buss has written, is simply an introspective awareness of one"s thoughts and feelings. What he calls "public self-consciousness", on the other hand, is a powerful perception of oneself as an object of social scrutiny. The latter is the root of social anxiety.
Social anxiety generally creates three different kinds of problems, which can occur separately or in tandem, according to Dr. Cheek. For some people, their social anxiety is primarily cognitive: they suffer from repetitive thoughts expressing their fear of making a poor impression, such as "He must think I am an idiot," or "I cannot think of anything to say."
Other people, though, experience their social anxiety almost entirely through physiological symptoms, such as blushing, a pounding heart, or sweating in social situation.
In either case, these symptoms lead to a set of behavioral ones: for example, not being able to speak although one wants to, or a general social awkwardness.
单选题
By saying "social anxiety is epidemic", the author means that social anxiety is ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] epidemic“流行病”，在这里作者强调的是社交焦虑的“普遍、广为流行”。
单选题
It is believed that social anxiety is ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 由第四段第一句“not a11 self-consciousness leads to social anxiety”可知并不是所有的自我意识都会导致社交焦虑，社交焦虑的根源在于“public self-consciousness”，即意识到自己是社会监督的对象。