Stigmatizing Role of Schizotypical Behavioron Social Anxiety during Pandemicamong Emerging Adults

Abstract

Anxiety is something common to every person, however, it's the intensity of it that makes some people's life worse than others. The pandemic of COVID-19 has further added to the feeling of Social Anxiety within people. The extensive compulsion of staying at home, not being able to indulge in social activities, and sense of loneliness together added up to result in many mental health issues within the population, and Social Anxiety being one of the major ones becomes the centre of study. Social anxiety (also called social phobia) is a mental health condition. It’s a type of anxiety that causes extreme fear in social settings. People in this state have trouble talking to people, meeting new people, and attending social gatherings. They fear being judged or stigmatized by others. They may be able to comprehend that their fears are irrational or unreasonable, but feel powerless to overcome them in anyway. Some of the situations they may choose to avoid or run away from are asking a question, job interviews, shopping, using public restrooms, talking on the phone, eating in public (www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/mental-healthsocial-anxiety-disorder; mental-health/is-anxiety-genetic). Social Anxiety has many underlying causes to be mentioned, from fearing to be judged, to having low self-esteem; people tend to ignore social settings and gatherings to avoid feeling anxious in the end. Constant reinforcement to avoid such situations makes the urge to stay to themselves, even more, stronger, www.healthline.com/health/ and further can work as a predictor to develop many other mental health issues. Seeing things that are not present, having disorganized thoughts, and social disinterest, can both be the cause or outcome of Social Anxiety, which is nothing but parts of Schizotyoical Behavioral patterns. Schizotypy, on the other hand, includes experiences of cognition, and perceptual deformity which lead to many behavioural effect and mental well being. Schizotypal is made up of a series of several signs and symptoms reflecting cognitive, perceptual, social, interpersonal, and behavioural dysfunction. People suffering from this may experience perceptual alternations, such as hearing someone mumbling their name or sensing that a spirit is present when it's not. They may have unusual mannerisms, an individual with this disorder may wear ill-fitting clothing or bizarre clothing combinations that are evidently visible (winter boots with shorts) and may be unable to participate in the normal give-and-take or regular form of conversation, they often interact with people only when there is no way of avoiding it otherwise they choose not to. It can also be understood as a multifactorial construct with four core dimensions•Unusual experiences: the symptoms of these criteria are characterized by unusual perceptual and other cognitive experiences, namely, hallucinations, magical or superstitious beliefs or weird interpretations of events around them. •Cognitive Disorganization: a tendency for thoughts or cognitions to become tangential, derailed, or distorted. A sample of 282 people, comprising of 156 males and 126 females aged between 18-21 years of age were taken. The data collection tool used was Social Anxiety Questionnaire and O-Life Questionnaire was used. Findings revealed that there is a significant positive correlation between dimensions of Schizotyical behaviourunusual experiences, Introverted Anhedonia, Cognitive Disorganization with Social Anxiety. Regression analysis revealed that the Predictor variable of the study viz., Unusual Experience (UE), Cognitive Disorganization (CD), Introverted Anhedonia (IA), and Impulsive Nonconformity contributed 12.2% variance in predicting social anxiety. The study will aid in predicting and controlling social anxiety considering these behavioral patterns which can further add up to the knowledge of beneficial treatments.