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Comment by magicnubs | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

Gosh I can relate to the blank feeling. Any idea why this might be the case?

It's another way that social anxiety manifests, as a lower level filter. It's how mine generally shows up, and used to be much worse before I did a bunch of therapy.

One thing that made this being anxiety based very clear was that one night I took phenibut for a party, and the following morning it was still in effect and I found myself thinking of way more jokes and doing little improv reactions to the people I was talking to. It's like my brain was completely filtering them out due to very low level anxiety. I got lucky and the effect partially persisted afterwards, because it taught me that saying these things was safe, so I didn't have anxiety about them afterwards.

I used to have this pretty bad. I believed that it showed that I was autistic, or lacking some kind of fundamental creative spark, or something like that. It’s gotten a lot better since I got treated for depression and anxiety. I think it was really just me shutting down ideas at a pre-conscious level. I don’t know much about how the brain works. But this is my (pseudoscientific BS) mental model of it:

1. Our ideas and memories are composed of connections between neurons.

2. “Creativity” is the expression of random, new connections between those neurons.

3. Creative expression requires focusing our attention on those new neural pathways, filling them in and adding detail.

4. Depression and anxiety caused me to focus my attention on the idea of failing to come up with something “on the spot” (and the many minor traumatic memories of failing in this way), instead of the infinite weak, undeveloped ideas that could be explored with a moment’s focused attention. It’s hard to be fun when you are having a small anxiety attack.

5. The antidepressant I’m taking has gotten me out of this rut. Whether it’s by turning off my anxiety, or helping my nascent creative neural pathways reach further by preventing the reuptake of some neurotransmitter, I don’t know.

I think it's related to the exploration exploitation tradeoff in reinforcement learning. Creativity is related to exploration and randomness (and a high learning rate) while exploitation to using past knowledge to extract the maximum benefit. The brain switches off the creative/learning part in order to maximise the latter. In reality we need a mix of both, exploration is necessary for improvement and exploiting past knowledge is necessary for achieving high rewards. In neural nets, a too high or too low learning rate would not lead you to the optimum, you need to find the exact sweet spot. Anxiety would turn the balance too much into exploitation mode when we need to be creative.

"Nothing"[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob4ZmHKbD28

The fight-or-flight response has a physiological effect on cognition:

> we suggest that stress shifts higher cognitive processing in a way that facilitates both engagement with and/or avoidance of the current stressor (i.e., fight or flight). By impairing executive control of cognition (i.e., working memory, cognitive inhibition, and cognitive flexibility), stress contributes to a reactive cognitive state that is fine-tuned to rapidly consider highly salient (i.e., stressor-related) information

> stress reallocates limited executive resources in adaptive ways [...] by impairing executive control over thoughts but improving executive control over motor actions [...] ideal for either fighting with or fleeing from a current stressor.

--- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003767/

>> 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.

My anecdote: theater/drama classes in middle and early high school don't count. You're mixed in with a bunch of teenagers who are only taking the class because either a) it's a mandatory class for all students; or b) more than half the class elected to take the class because it's "easy credit". When many/most of the students in a class aren't there because they actually want to explore the art, it ruins the entire dynamic. The same loudmouth bullies who cause trouble elsewhere in the school have an open season on the shy students; every step a socially awkward student tries to take to "open up" simply provides the bullies with more information they need to target the vulnerable.

Every participant must be present because they have a genuine interest to work with their teammates. Acceptance and cooperation are necessary in order to peel back social fear, and that means finding a group of like-minded people who show up to explore themselves and others around them.

The problem that nearly everyone has, and slowly becomes better, is being willing to be boring. The improv classes and books, particularly the closer you get to Keith Johnstone, all emphasize this. People get paralyzed trying to be creative, and scenes and games stall out, sometimes painfully, when people would be just fine, possibly even overjoyed, with the first thing that comes to your mind. But the first thing that comes to mind might reveal your "true self", the crazy person you don't want people to see that you are sure isn't in anyone else, and so you try to be different, creative, and you're just grasping for what you think other people might find acceptable and special. ... I've taken a lot of improv classes, and read a lot of books, and it's so much more therapy than I expected.

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.

"yes and" is really important to learn.

Also great for the opposite purpose: completely contradicting someone while keeping them on board

Yes, and whenever the average person notices that you've pulled it on them they become completely enraged. People hate being managed.

It depends on the person, and how you manage them. It’s embarassing to realize that you’re failing to communicate so badly that you require management. But if the manager handles it well, the managee has an opportunity to prevent that embarrassment from becoming public by changing their approach.

>It’s embarassing to realize that you’re failing to communicate so badly that you require management.

The other possibility in this situation is that the person doing the managing has just cast an unnecessary zero-confidence vote because of their own perceived superiority or excessive ego. Trying to manage people opens you up to some seriously negative social repercussions, unless those people are your kids.

I think this is a mistake.

I think the better approach is to find a thing you both agree on and truly give a yes to that. E.g., if I disagree with somebody on the right way to solve a problem, I can at least say, "Yes, it's important we get this right."

From there, in improv terms, I'd probably abandon my first offer and find a new offer that is closer to acceptable. E.g., "So let's do a minimal test of both approaches and see what kind of data we get."

From there I'd again use the improv approach of not trying to control the flow, instead saying open to possibility. If the data goes my way, I can be gracious. If it hasn't, I have learned something, and can be generous with my praise. Either one heightens the chosen narrative direction of being on the same side.

Yes, and I think we can extend this even further.

Maybe it might be even better to find a thing you both agree on and truly give a yes to that. E.g., if I disagree with somebody on the right way to solve a problem, I can at least say, "Yes, it's important we get this right."

In this case I think it was worth contradicting his deeply manipulative approach.

Generally I'm for getting along. But when someone acts in ways that are abusive or manipulative, I think it's important to be clear how corrosive that is.

An actor I really like claimed improv's "make the other person look awesome" notion helped her to be different, stand out.

Sounds like a fantastic philosophy.

I've never witnessed improv (live performances). I had ignorantly equated improv with standup comedy, which I mostly dislike, for being mean spirited and punching down.

Live and learn.

in standup you have a scripted monologue that you endlessly practice and polish. improv is the opposite.

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 definitely think so. I started my career in the financial industry and stumbled into a position that required me to attend mutual fund board meetings at 25. As the youngest person in the room by at least 20 years and the only woman it was hugely intimidating to me. It was also immensely frustrating. They would ask a difficult question of me (as good board members do) and if it wasn't a question I had anticipated I would freeze, blubber out some sort of halfwitted response, and hope they'd quickly turn their attention elsewhere. Later I'd get angry at myself because if I hadn't panicked I knew I could have given a much better and more valuable response. Complaining about my frustration one day a colleague suggested improv classes to me and they were HUGELY valuable for this exact reason. It taught me that I can take a moment to gather my thoughts and nothing bad would happen. It also taught me that I could decide where a conversation was going instead of being dragged along for the ride while my brain tried to work out the details. I often tell people it taught me how to "think faster" but perhaps it's more accurate to say it taught me how to react slower and think more deliberately.

>It taught me that I can take a moment to gather my thoughts and nothing bad would happen.

One high-level exec at IBM had a habit during the Q&A at analyst meetings of writing down questions on index cards before answering. He partly did this as a process of making sure he understood the question. I'm sure it was also his way of taking a bit of time to collect his thoughts.

Preparation is hugely important of course. And sometimes the correct answer to a question is "We'll get back to you on that." But it's also incredibly useful to be able to deal with curveballs whether it's an unexpected question, an A/V meltdown, or a demo failure.

That's really interesting. I'm always nervous that taking too long to respond will make me look incompetent but if I was in the room and someone calmly took the time to write a question down I think my impression would be "wow, they're so in control" because they aren't bothered by silence.

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.

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