Social Anxiety - Laura

So for this research topic, I wanted to choose a topic that interested me, which means it had to be a part of the Behavioral or Social Sciences.  Thus, when I came across a topic on anxiety, and social anxiety at that, I had to choose it.  This topic talks about the population as a whole discussing whether the population is full of anxiety.  My topic is on social anxiety, specifically looking to find the differences and similarities between shyness and social anxiety.  This topic will also allow me to research into the population to see if society is developing more socially anxious.  I will research the differences and between shyness and anxiety, and exactly what it means to have anxiety.  I will also look into the increasing lifetime prevalence of anxiety across our population.  And I will also research to see if the U.S. specifically is developing with more anxiety in the personal lives of Americans.  My hypothesis will be that anxiety is a real struggle in today’s society, and with the increased advertisements, stereotypes, personal judgments and criticism, society as a whole is on the increase in anxiety.  I will definitely look into the APA DSM handbook to see the causes, and symptoms of anxiety.  I will also use psychological magazines such as Psychology Today and Mind for personal accounts from psychiatrists and medical experts in the media atmosphere.  I will also seek the scholarly articles that I can hope to find in the library and online.  Overall I believe that the reader will find this research interesting to find out that society, as a whole, is moving in a more anxiety driven path than one would believe.  This research will be informative for the reader and allow the reader a different view on the outlook of life.