Evolutionary Models: Practical and Conceptual Utility for the Treatment and Study of Social Anxiety Disorder

Abstract

It is well known that group living poses certain challenges in that some individuals will be potentially threatening (eliciting either fight and flight or submissive responses), while others offer potential opportunities for reproduction, and forming cooperative, sharing alliances (requiring approach and display behaviour). The navigation of these challenges has led to the evolution of mechanisms for the estimation of threat versus opportunity (approach and avoidance). This chapter explores social anxiety in this evolutionary context. It highlights recent adaptations to social competition by which social rank and position are competed for with demonstrations of attractiveness (e.g., talent, physical beauty, humour, intelligence, personality, altruism). This is competition to be chosen by others for various roles (e.g., as friends, team mates, sexual partners, work employees). This chapter builds on earlier models of social anxiety which focused on impression management, and links them to evolutionary concepts of social status and desirability competition.

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