back
111 comments
It didn't really give any indications as to how it works in the article, but the people I've known with the worst social phobia have been those who've been most scared of potential (or imagined) social punishment, usually because they feel there is a "script" that they will have trouble following in a social setting (e.g. responding to something "the wrong way", or not having the "right" answer ready for a question, etc.) Seems like it makes sense that if you're constantly places in scenarios with no script and no right or wrong answer, it would help alleviate the anxiety over not knowing "what everyone knows" you're supposed to do in [situation], and that being confident in what you say is like 50% of being seen as a socially capable person.
The study notes a high attrition rate (~45% of those who started this dropped out), and this appears to be a voluntary endeavor.

This is significant to me, as I suspect many of the people with anxiety that is significant enough to be diagnosable would not be willing to do it or would pretty much shut down if placed in the setting.

To delve into personal anecdotes:

I had a theater class in school that regularly included improv exercises like described. In 11 years of it (K-10 or so), I don't think it ever went well.

The actual manifestation of the problem with "no script" was drawing a complete blank as soon as I was asked, not having a bunch of ideas I was scared to respond with.

It's certainly possible that these people have a better method, but I had multiple theater teachers and I was socially fine in normal settings. All these activities tended to do was give me more anxiety issues because everyone else could come up with things and I'd just be stuck there no matter how people tried to help me get going.

Those are not really common situations in adult life, but I'm still bad with "icebreaker" games and other similar things that "put me on the spot" to come up with something outside of normal social interactions.

As a socially anxious person who took improv classes in my 20s, I found them hugely useful. The biggest thing I took away were specific attitudes. Like "yes and", where you accept what the person you're talking to starts with and then build on it. Or the the way to succeed is to make many attempts to start something going (what improv calls offers), to follow up on the ones that show promise, and not to worry about the ones that fall by the wayside. Or to not get in your head, to stay present in the moment.

And yes, it definitely trains you that there is no "right" way to have a conversation.

I think the main difficulty is that normal conversational success can be different than improv success. In improv, you want funny. Funny can be good in normal conversations, but most people are after other things. Understanding, support, connection, reflection. New improv people can be fantastically annoying if they use it as just another way to hide and deflect.

What I remember from middle school and early high school is the pressure to be funny in group settings. In terms of social status, that skill was at least as important as being good at sports. Failure was immediate and so public. My jokes were met with confusion, silence and people looking at their shoes. The most excruciating part was waiting for someone else to pick up the dropped ball and restart the conversation. It only took a few experiences like that before I stopped trying. Improv could help you learn what is funny to your peers and also how to participate in a way that keeps the conversation flowing.
I wonder if there’s still value in etiquette classes that used to be common but seem to have disappeared. I can imagine there being benefits to practicing politely greeting people and holding a conversation with eye contact and complements and all of that.
would that fall under "exposure therapy" ? i.e. doing it enough to get comfortable that nothing bad happens no matter how unprepared, as opposed to learning the skills to have a good "script" for when situations arise. I've tried Improv classes for this reason, but can't say it was a huge boost, other than adding 1 more thing to my list of self development achievements :)
I would give one guess: Practice and progression.

How do you overcome fear? practice and progression.

What's improv? Practice and progression.

maybe a bit simplistic... but some answers are just that simple.

This is a bit far out, but if anyone here lives in London and wants to try their hand at this: I run improv workshops. Usually for actors , but I’d love to do a HN session or two :) if there’s interest.

I will definitely make sure to tailor it 100% to be approachable by even the most awkward introverted IT’ers among us; I’ve been in the business for long enough to know how. No pressure, guaranteed. Sitting and watching for the entire workshop is also fine.

No charge beyond a few quid pp to cover a room. beyond that we just need an evening and some snacks.

My contact is in my profile; reply here or drop me a line—would be a lot of fun to make some magic happen!

I often have social anxiety and I can confirm these findings. Some years ago I did an improv class. First I was really scared but we did a lot of exercises where you really had no pressure to be funny but funny situations just developed without anyone trying. I learned to say "yes" to new things and go into the unknown without being scared.

It was super low pressure and very supportive and I would rate it in the top 5 of life transforming experiences for me. Others are travelling without preparation, joining Toastmasters and picking up martial arts.

This was basically folk knowledge when I was growing up in Brazil. Theater classes for teenagers were like 40% attractive people who want to make it as actors/60% awkward teens.

From a basic trust in the scientific process (but also noting the limits of scientific psychology) I figure that social anxiety and the like are serious mental illnesses. But I immigrated as a three-year old and didn't know the language/make any friends for a while, so my social skills always lagged. Theater lessons (some of which was improv, but we wrote our own sketches for a capstone play for our own families) sort of helped me balance that. If there was any anxiety it was secondary/symptomatic of some underdeveloped stuff, much like people develop math anxiety.

In retrospect, I attribute it to the "growth mindset" phenomenon: beginners make fools of themselves onstage whether they are awkward or easygoing, so you realize that being-comfortable-in-your-skin is something you can learn rather than something you were born without. Maybe this is what people are going to "hackathons" for - in a pressured time-boxed situation people are less likely to look down on the less math/programming-literate and help them instead.

“Make someone do something they’re afraid of at a level they can handle and they get better at it and less afraid”.

Not surprising. This is how I conquered my deep fear of flying. I took some flying lessons and even had the instructor do stalls and other scary stuff and I was 95% better afterward.

It’s so much easier to take a drug or blame biochemistry than to face your fears. I think it’s underrated in today’s world where there’s a handy diagnosis for everything.

Note: not casting aspersions on people with serious issues. But when 20% of the US population is supposed to have anxiety disorders, something doesn’t make sense.

> Note: not casting aspersions on people with serious issues. But when 20% of the US population is supposed to have anxiety disorders, something doesn’t make sense.

That's what happens when a culture undermines the virtues of independence, competence, stolidity, and maturity while venerating childishness. It's what happens when a culture overvalues safety and the avoidance of suffering and undervalues character. Coddled children turn into adults who lack the skills and experience to deal with hardship.

Exposure therapy is hard work. It requires calmly distancing yourself from your fears and anxieties, believing that they can be overcome in the first place, strategizing about how to overcome them, and carrying out actions that are genuinely terrifying to you. It requires valuing freedom from your own emotional limitations over freedom from discomfort. It requires preferring being capable over being comfortable. And that's a hard mindset to cultivate if you were raised in a society where parents sometimes get into legal trouble for letting their kids walk to school or sit outside in the car while they're grocery shopping.

20% of the US population does have anxiety disorders, because the US is suffering from a psychiatric epidemic.

That's pretty much exactly what CBT is, which we already know is effective and is already relevant as a "mainstream" treatment for mental illness ("have you seen a therapist?").

I think coming to the point where you're ready to "face your fears" may be the real difficulty, and not just because people are lazy, stupid, or "coddled". On the contrary, we as humans are really smart. The mind has developed complex strategies exactly for avoiding dealing with your fears.

I'm somewhat skeptical of these results. I'm a member of an (amateur) improv group. When I improvise, I often feel more nervous because I'm thinking about several things at once: acting, supporting my partner, finding the "game" of a scene. In this way, I can get "stuck" in my head much more than I would in everyday life. While it certainly feels great to have a good show or practice, it can feel pretty crappy to have a show that goes poorly. If I had problems with anxiety, I'm not sure that improv would help.
My take is that theater, or taking the stage in general, helps tremendously.

I remember being such a shy child that in school I couldn't even get myself to stand in line to the sink in which all the others were washing their hands before lunch.

My mother sent me to acting classes when I was eight or so and this experience changed me forever.

It's the sheer adrenaline of being at the center of attention with your group that does this - just about any social situation becomes manageable after that.

I'm a believer in these findings. I do wish that the model for learning improv in the private sector was different. As it is, adults have to move to cities where theaters are offering classes, then pay out for the classes (which can run up to $300-400 per 8-week class in the bigger schools). It's expensive, is the point, and this creates a barrier for people of a certain class. I'd love to see it offered in more high schools, or as a free-or-cheap activity akin to soccer or community theatre.

Don't even get me started on the level of privilege needed to pay through enough class levels to let one of the theaters audition you for their non-paying staff performer spots.

Improv is one the most fun and useful thing I've done. I don't think I had any diagnosable social issues, but it's made me better socially. It's also made me better at presenting and pitching. And it's given me something to spend time on that's not work or tech related.
The original study is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01974...

Here is the abstract:

Adolescents who have Social Anxiety Disorder do not receive the support they need. Improvisational theater involves regular exposure to social performance situations, and is recognized as a potential psycho-social support to enhance well-being and symptom reduction. The current study examines whether participating in a school-based improvisational theater program predicts reductions in symptoms of social anxiety. A total of 268 middle and high school students who participated in a ten-week school-based improvisational theater program completed surveys in a single group pre/post design. Adolescents who screened positive for social phobia at the beginning of class reported reduced symptoms of social anxiety at post-test. This change predicts increases in social skills, hope, creative self-efficacy, comfort performing for others, and willingness to make mistakes, along with marginal decreases in symptoms of depression. Given that no prior study has examined school-based improvisational theater training and its relationship to social anxiety, this work offers an important early contribution to the empirical literature on improvisation and mental health. School-based improvisational theater training offers an accessible, non-clinical alternative for addressing social anxiety problems among adolescents.

Improv is absolutely wonderful for social anxiety - the point is to say "yes, and" and every time someone just gives a hard "no" the entire scene stops and everyone can feel it. Social anxiety for many is the fear of social/phsycial consequences for expression - its a perfect "safe" environment by which to learn to express yourself.
The thought of even trying that is giving me anxiety.
I keep seeing anecdotes about the unreasonable effectiveness of improv. Many people say it’s in the top 2 or 3 subjects they’ve studied and learned, regardless of their background/profession. Maybe it’s time to look into studying it myself, I’d be happy if people shared any recs on how to get started.
This basically confirms my experiences, the way I improved my social anxiety and public speaking was with (forced) immersion therapy from the public speaking and communication I had to do in college, and at work to a lesser degree.
I read the headline and basically said, "You have checked in on the local High School's Drama club right?"

At least in the Bay Area, Drama Club seems to be a safe place for socially awkward teens.

I never did improv, but in high school, the way that I got over a lot of social anxiety was learning to be funny; making my peers laugh was a good enough way to break the ice and has really helped me in my career. Granted, in high school the only trick to making a joke is to imply something sexual or say a swear word, but the principles still basically holds.

Picking up a few joke books was really helpful to me, so I suspect that taking a class might be even better.

When I was in middle school in the late 70's I was exposed to "Interp" - dramatic interpretation, a form of debate that is dramatic and improvisational. My school never developed its own team, but I envied the schools that did. Looks like it is still going strong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNDZ9yblPpI
I know this is a bit tangential, but my 2nd grader has had a string of "public speaking" assignments and it struck me as being odd (ie 7yo is kinda young for something like that). But apparently it is a bit of a trend in schools and they very much do it that early on purpose. It builds up confidence slowly before social awareness really kicks in. I thought it was a brilliant idea.
In public speaking, I used to turn red, sweat and babble... In business school, a three day seminar with theater actors made me realize it didn't have to be like that - it unlocked my attitude and set me on a self-improvement path... I am now at ease speaking anywhere anytime - it took a few years but improvisation with actors has been key to start heading there.
I wonder if this is limited to improvisational theater or if something like a roleplaying game, where the person has to act out a role with no script, can help as well. I would think that they get to perform the same sort of social interactions and while still being "low cost".
I've found improv to be frustrating (but not anxiety inducing) in the sense that you can "yes and" a topic to a place that's difficult for someone else to pick up.

Almost like you're playing catch, but you tossed the ball to a place that makes it too hard for your friend to catch. Another example would be writing a comment (even this one) and consciously making sure it's easy to reply to, rather than just expressing myself.

I suppose it's like having a binary tree, and trying to pick a node that's not too far down the tree.

I find myself having to take a step back and consider what I'm going to say and if it makes sense (in general) for someone else to continue off of rather than just talking.

I'd take an improv class as an adult if it weren't so nerve wracking.
I work remote, and I am certain that improv can help a virtual team read eachother on calls and engage in "groupthink".

I don't know how I can alter a class so it's Zoom-ready, but maybe this research will help me convince some Guinea Pigs at my company.

If anyone's interested in checking out improv musicals, check out the excellent and hilarious Off Book podcast: https://youtu.be/Ivf58k53nu0?t=132
Wet blanket researcher: No randomization, purposive sampling, high attrition, this is not great science. Doing randomized trials for this sort of thing is difficult but necessary. A correlational pre-post study is a good start!
I've never encountered with "improvisional theater". How does it work? What practically is "performing without a script"? You stay on stage and say anything that comes to your mind?
It can also make them really annoying at parties. But hey, I guess they got over their anxiety, so that's good.
I think VR can be used for this also. Emotional and social intelligence training is the best use of this tech.
There's an entire self-help book on this: Improv Wisdom, by a Stanford instructor who teaches improv.
I wanna do improv since past 2 years, but there's nothing in Pune city.
I feel like I got a lot out of my college LARP group for similar reasons.
Worked for me and it was my favorite class in middle school.
Works for adults, too.
You mean, interacting with people in 'safe' real life helps with anxiety about interacting with people? Shocker!
Teens? How about adults!?
Worked for 25-year-old me.