Measuring Public Speaking Anxiety: Self-Report, Behavioral, and Physiological Measures

Self-reports are typically used to assess public speaking anxiety. In this study, we examined whether self-report, observer report, and behavioral and physiological reactivity were associated with each other during a speech challenge task. A total of 95 university students completed a self-reported measure of public speaking anxiety before and after the speech challenge. Speech duration (i.e., behavioral measure), physiological reactivity, as well as speech performance evaluated by the participants and observers were also recorded. The results suggest that self-reported public speaking anxiety predicts speech duration, as well as speech quality as rated by the participants themselves and the observers. However, the physiological measures were not associated with self-reported anxiety during the speech task. Additionally, we observed that socially anxious participants underrate their speech performance in comparison to their observers’ evaluations.