Social networks and social anxiety Jules Evans

April 10, 2007 | More on Influence and networks | No comments

I’m writing a book at the moment about social anxiety. It’s an emotional disorder that makes you terrified of being negatively judged or humiliated by others. It was only officially recognized by the DSM Manual of clinical disorders in 1980, but since then, psychologists have come to think it could affect between 6 and 12% of the population in the US, making it the most common anxiety disorder and the third most common mental illness (after depression and alcoholism) in the West.

My book is looking at the cultural determinants of the illness. One of the questions I ask is, why is it so prevalent in the West, particularly in the US, and why does it hardly appear in east Asian communities, where studies suggest it affects just 0.5% of the population?

There are many possible reasons. One is that it is just as prevalent in Asian communities, but they are less comfortable admitting to mental problems than western countries. Another possible reason, the reason I’ve heard from psychologists and Anglo-Asians with social anxiety, is that natural character traits like shyness and reticence are considered much less maladaptive in Asian communities, and are sometimes actively valued, compared to western communities, which tend to set higher store on extroversion, social confidence and social performance.

The area I’m looking at, one that has barely been studied by psychologists, is whether there is a connection between the high premium set by western culture on social performance, and the socio-economic make-up of western culture. It would obviously make sense that such a connection exists, but so far no one has really looked into the question, I suppose because social anxiety is a relatively new area of psychological research, and today’s psychologists tend to look at things in very narrow clinical frameworks.

There are lots of different reasons western culture sets a high premium on social performance. One is the highly competitive nature of western capitalism, the developments of liberalized stocks markets, the intense competition between companies for market share, and the intense competition between individuals for career advancement.

It is generally considered, in the West, that those who are best able to ‘sell themselves’ will be best able to attract resources. They’ll be the best at making presentations, at meeting investors, at ‘networking’.

The ability to socially network effectively, in particular, is considered a real asset in western economies. This, I suggest, is because western societies and western economies are particularly fluid. To an unusual degree, westerners move between jobs, between different groups of friends and associates. We recognize the value of having a large network of ties, as a way of gathering information about the market, gathering possible business opportunities, and associating our ‘brand’ with other people’s, particularly people who are or who might be important or powerful.

The westerner is constantly on the look-out for possible network opportunities, because such opportunities are much more deregulated in the West – the person you meet at a drinks party could be a source to venture capital money, or a possible new employer, or a gate-way to a useful new group of social and commercial contacts.

This is in contrast, it would appear, with non-westerners, whose economies are still often less deregulated, whose employment histories involve less moving about, whose social networks, perhaps, are tighter but less extended, less fluid.

That, at least, was the observation of one blogger I’ve been reading, Mark from Toronto, who spent several months living in Hanoi, observing differences in socializing techniques between westerners and the Vietnamese. One post of his reads:

A few days before my departure I was invited to a house party hosted by two Americans. The party was split down the middle, expat and Vietnamese, so it seemed an appropriate anticipation of my transition back to the West.

I’ve written a lot about the way Vietnamese socialize in groups. The differences with Western modes of socializing were in stark contrast at this party. Predictably all the expats gravitated towards the kitchen. The Vietnamese meanwhile camped out in the living room. But the way they were relating was the most interesting thing.

I didn’t know any of the expats, but all I had to do was stand around a few minutes in the kitchen before a few people introduced themselves. Although these introductions were generally stiff and awkward (“Hi, my name is Barbara. How long have you been in Hanoi?”), I was still struck by the peculiarity of this sort of cocktail conversation in which strangers introduce themselves and search for intersecting interests. There should be nothing unusual about this except that I could see it fresh after being away from it all for so long. Here was a room full of mostly unrelated individuals chatting in small clusters, mixing and regrouping throughout the evening. All the sudden I could see the fluidity of the Western kind of socializing. There was a kind of randomness and serendipity, like atoms bouncing off each other.

In the living room there was no mixing and mingling whatsoever. Instead the Vietnamese group all knew each other and hung together like a big family. They were essentially draped over each other on the couch and the floor. If you didn’t know them already there would be little way to break in. But in contrast to the random fluidity in the kitchen was warmth and casual intimacy. Once I’d had my fill of finger food I opted for the living room where I curled up the couch with the rest of them.

Now I am back in Toronto and this contrast is even starker. In Hanoi I would sometimes complain about the cliquey-ness (sp?) and the fact that people wouldn’t talk to others outside their group. Now I can see the good and the bad of each pattern. We Westerners may be better at introductions, and mixing and mingling, our social networks may be more open and less defined, but intimacy between friends doesn’t seem to come as easy for us.

The ultimate example of this western-style networking and its commercial benefits is, of course, Silicon Valley. Stanford University has actually established a special research institute just to study the importance of social networking to the Valley.

The institute says that it is a truth “universally agreed on” that social networks played a crucial role in the development of the Valley, because so many people there new each other, jumped from company to company, and helped introduce start-ups to venture capital firms and lawyers. It notes that figures who were particularly influential in the semi-conductor industry “were the ones connected to more than ten people in the network”, and it suggests “actors who are more central, in the sense of having more ties to others, or being crucial linkages that actors must go through to reach others, can often be shown to be more influential”.

So it seems that, in deregulated western economies like Silicon Valley, how influential, powerful and ultimately rich one is depends on one’s social networking skills. If those skills are high – if you’re good at making a connection, at chit-chat, at being affable and agreeable with lots of strangers – you’ll do well, and find yourself a prominent and central position in the network.

If, on the other hand, you are perceived by others to be rude, erratic, violent, untrustworthy or unpleasant company, you are likely to have a less prominent position in the network. You might be a very talented person, but if you don’t have the social skills to market it, you will find yourself on the periphery of the network.

An example from Silicon Valley is William Shockley, the Nobel-prize winning developer of semi-conductors, the man considered the father of Silicon Valley. He played a key role in establishing the commercial production of transistors, but his social behaviour threatened his position in the network. He was considered “authoritarian and eccentric”, “domineering”, “paranoid”. He once thought a secretary’s cut thumb was the result of a “malicious act”, so he had much of the research staff lie-detected to see who did it (it turned out to be a tack on the frame of a door). As a result, people gravitated away from him. The so-called ‘Treacherous Eight’ deserted him to set up their own, highly successful, research centre.

So you can see how there’s a pressure, in the West, to have good social skills, to be able to network, schmooze, present yourself successfully in a whole array of different social situations, which might be potentially useful or profitable to one.

At the same time, this creates particular anxiety that one might be coming across badly, networking badly, disliked, ridiculed, avoided. As Lorena Hsu, a psychologist studying social anxiety in western and Asian cultures, tells me: “Social anxiety is very much associated with the cost of socially performing badly, with how threatening it is seen to be to one’s interests.”

In western society, because they are so fluid and deregulated, those costs would seem to be higher than in more state-controlled, low-circulation and bureaucratic societies.

The result is that many people can’t take the pressure and humiliation of feeling they are networking badly, and they opt out of the network altogether.

There are many other avenues one can pursue on this topic, but that’s enough for now. Let us close with hymn 64, ‘Paranoid Android’:

That’s it sir, you’re leaving,
the crackle of pig skin,
the dust and the screaming
The yuppies networking
the panic, the vomit,
the panic, the vomit
God loves his children,
God loves his children, yeah