Last Updated on April 13, 2023 by Mike Robinson

Glossophobia is an abnormal, excessive, and unfounded fear of speaking in front of groups of people. The topic is a particular situational phobia that is exclusive to public speaking. When forced to speak in front of others, those with glossophobia experience intense anxiety, which frequently keeps them from engaging in such activities.

The feared component sets this alteration apart from social phobia. Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking alone, unlike social phobia, which is the fear of any activity requiring social interaction.

Currently, some interventions make it possible to overcome glossophobia, as well as many groups that can be very helpful in overcoming the fear of speaking in front of others. In this article, we go over glossophobia’s main traits. The distinctions between glossophobia, social phobia, and shyness and their symptoms, causes, and diagnoses are discussed. 

Common Characteristics of Glossophobia

Glossophobia is a particular kind of fear. It is an anxiety disorder that makes people feel terrified when speaking in public. When someone with glossophobia has to speak in public, they feel a very high level of anxiety. This usually means that the person can’t do what they fear or get out of the situation they fear.

Also, people with glossophobia tend to avoid problems where they have to speak in public. The people who have this change know that they worry too much about these situations and usually try to avoid them to avoid the discomfort they feel in those times.

This fact often hurts different parts of the person, especially in the education and work fields, where these tasks are often needed. On the other hand, a person with glossophobia is afraid not only of oral presentations in school or at work but also of any other type of public speaking.

Glossophobia vs. Shyness

It’s normal for people to feel fear or nerves when speaking in public. In the same way, more shy people tend to be more afraid of speaking in public. But to understand glossophobia properly, you must know it causes a mental condition significantly different from shyness. First, shyness is not a mental illness, but glossophobia is.

The word “shyness” describes several other personality traits that are not harmful. In this way, glossophobia is worse than shyness as a mental disorder. Shy people may need help speaking in public. Also, shy people may feel more anxious before, during, or after an activity that involves public speaking. Even so, they can develop the ability, despite the problems.

 People with glossophobia, on the other hand, have much stronger anxiety responses and a much stronger fear of public speaking. This means they won’t be able to do this activity most of the time. The main difference between glossophobia and shyness is not how much anxiety they cause in public speaking situations but what kind of fear they generate. A shy person’s fear of speaking in public is normal, while a person with glossophobia fear is called a phobia. The main things that make glossophobia such a scary fear are:

Presence of Excessive Fear 

When it comes to public speaking, the fear that someone with glossophobia feels is out of proportion to what the situation calls for. The person with glossophobia sees speaking in public as dangerous and reacts to it with extreme anxiety.

Irrational Reaction to Public Speaking

Glossophobia is a fear of words that usually make no sense. The person experiencing this change knows their fear is out of proportion and doesn’t make sense. When someone is shy, they typically link their fear of speaking in public to thoughts that make more sense. This makes the anxiety response smaller and easier to handle.

Uncontrollable Anxiety

Even though the person with glossophobia knows that having such a high fear of public speaking isn’t helpful, he can’t do anything about it. Feelings of fear and signs of anxiety happen automatically and can’t be stopped. Instead, a shy person usually has some skills and abilities that help them deal with their feelings of fear.

Symtoms are Persistent

Glossophobia is the fear of speaking in public. It always happens when a person has to do these things. It depends a little on the situation or what’s happening around it. In the same way, the fear of glossophobia is not affected by temporary things or set stages of life. But when someone is shy, their fear of speaking in public can worsen in certain situations and change over time.

Leads to Avoidance

To talk about glossophobia, the person must avoid doing things that involve public speaking regularly. Shy people, on the other hand, tend to put themselves in situations that make them feel anxious or uncomfortable, even when they don’t want to.

Physical Symptoms

The physical symptoms show up first and are the ones that make a person feel the worst. When a person is afraid to speak in public, their brain increases activity in the autonomic nervous system. This brain thing is related to a person’s fear response, and it causes a series of changes in how his body works that are usually very annoying. The physical signs of glossophobia can be very different from one person to the next, so they don’t usually follow a single pattern. When a person with this type of specific phobia wants to speak in public, they may feel any of the following:

1. Increase in the cardiac rate.
2. Increase in the respiratory rate.
3. Palpitations and/or tachycardias
4. Drowning sensation
5. Increase in muscle tension
6. Increased sweating
7. Pupillary dilation
8. Dry mouth.
9. Stomach or head pains
10. Nausea, dizziness, and vomiting
11. feeling of unreality

Changes Your Thought Process

On the cognitive level of glossophobia, what stands out is the development of a series of irrational thoughts about public speaking. These thoughts can take different shapes and be about various things, but they always have something bad to say about speaking in public. Glossophobia is characterized by irrational thoughts and physical symptoms that make the person feel even more anxious. The person’s physical symptoms make them feel worse about speaking in public, while their irrational thoughts worsen their physical symptoms.

Types of Behavioral Changes 

Lastly, to talk about glossophobia and distinguish it from shyness or other normal psychological conditions, the person’s behavior must be affected by their fear of speaking in public. In this way, avoidance is the one behavior that stands out the most.

A person with glossophobia will always try to avoid situations where they have to speak in public, no matter the consequences. When a person with glossophobia can’t avoid public speaking and has to do it, other symptoms usually show up.

Usually, the anxiety causes changes in behavior, like being unable to speak, stuttering, or having speech tremors. Also, sometimes the escape can show up. This behavior causes a person to escape the situation they fear so they can stop feeling bad.

Diagnosis of Glossophobia

At the moment, glossophobia is a disorder with clear signs and symptoms. These criteria are beneficial for figuring out if the change is there or not and for telling it apart from other anxiety disorders. In this way, the following must be true to make a diagnosis of glossophobia:

1. Fear or intense anxiety caused by the activity of public speaking (the phobic element)
2. The phobic element almost always causes fear or immediate anxiety.
3. The phobic element is actively avoided or resisted with fear or intense anxiety.
4. Fear or anxiety is disproportionate to the danger posed by the phobic element and the sociocultural context.
5. Fear, anxiety, or avoidance is persistent and typically lasts six or more months.
6. Fear, anxiety, or avoidance causes clinically significant discomfort or deterioration in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
7. The symptoms of another mental disorder do not better explain the disturbance.

Glossophobia vs. social phobia

Glossophobia is a disorder that looks like a social phobia and can be mistaken for it. But it’s important to remember that glossophobia is different from social phobia. The most important difference between the two is what is feared.

While public speaking is the only thing that makes glossophobia scary, social phobia is a general fear of all social situations. In this way, a person with social phobia can fear having personal conversations, eating, writing, or going to parties. So, you can think of glossophobia as another sign of social phobia.

People with both glossophobia and social phobia may fear speaking in public. But people with glossophobia don’t have the same fear of other social activities that people with social phobia do.

Common Causes

Glossophobia doesn’t have a single cause; instead, it may be due to several different things. Most studies show that the development of glossophobia depends on how various factors interact with each other. In this way, some things can be linked to glossophobia, including:

1. Experience of one or more personal traumatic incidents related to public speaking.
2. Visualization of one or several other traumatic incidents associated with the activity of speaking in public.
3. Progressive avoidance of public speaking activity
4. Negative beliefs about public speaking activities developed during the early stages.

Recommended Treatments

Psychotherapy sessions are a must if you want to help someone with glossophobia. The main thing that helps people get over their fear of public speaking is facing their fears. Cognitive-behavioral treatments mainly involve putting the person in situations where they have to speak in public and helping them gradually work through their anxiety to get over their fear. On the other hand, there are now many ways to learn how to speak in public, which can help people deal with anxiety when they have to do it.