Ten high anxiety social situations

Back on December 18, 1984 Daniel Goleman wrote an article in the New York Times titled “Social Anxiety: New Focus Leads to Insights and Therapy.” You can read the text here. That article also contained an inset box with the same information as the bar chart  shown above (click on it for a larger version), accompanied by the following caption:

“ Situations Causing the Most Anxiety

In surveys of several hundred men and women, these situations were reported as producing the most anxiety. 

The research was done by Warren Jones at the University of Tulsa and Dan Russell at the University of Ohio College of Medicine.”

A party with strangers produced the most anxiety, 74%, while giving a speech was second with 70%. And death wasn’t even on the list - being asked personal questions in public was third, at 65%.

I found an Acrobat file showing the entire article on the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database over at Boise State University. Dan Russell probably really was at the University of Iowa, since his information doesn’t show him as having worked in Ohio. So far I haven’t found a magazine article by Jones and Russell with any more details.