Communication Apprehension

Communication apprehension is a term the communication scholar James C. McCroskey defined as the degree of anxiety a person feels in response to real or anticipated communication with others, driven mainly by fear of how an audience will judge them and concern about protecting their own self-image. The anxiety divides into oral communication apprehension, the more widely studied form, and written communication apprehension, since a person can feel this anxiety either speaking or writing; people experiencing it often report involuntary physical symptoms such as stomach discomfort from the digestive system slowing under a fight-or-flight response, trembling, nausea, sweating and difficulty remembering what they meant to say. Although oral communication apprehension is closely associated with stage fright, it is not limited to formal public speaking and can arise across interpersonal, small-group, public and mass-communication settings; the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension, known as the PRCA-24, is the most widely used instrument for measuring oral communication apprehension, while a separate questionnaire developed by Daly and Miller measures the written form.