Anxiety about public speaking is a common fear among people from all walks of life

Levels of trait anxiety and depression were examined in the context of speech assignments in an introductory communication course. Low to moderate correlations were found between anxiety and depression at each of the public speaking milestones of anticipation, confrontation, adaptation, and release. Moreover, the shapes of the patterns of depression and anxiety were significantly different, with anxiety levels falling in a monotonic linear pattern and depression levels rising after the speech had ended, indicating a quadratic pattern of change. Findings indicate that speakers’ depression, like speech anxiety, is a dynamic trait that is subject to subtle changes across speech milestones. Paul L. Witt, Mendy L. Roberts and Ralph R. Behnke 217 Anxiety about public speaking is a common fear among people from all walks of life (Gibson, Gruner, Hanna, Smythe & Hayes, 1973). Many individuals experience some degree of communication apprehension or “fear associated with real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (McCroskey, 1984, p.13), and public speaking is perceived as a particularly stressful and anxiety-producing experience. Moreover, “public speaking anxiety represents a cluster of evaluative feelings about speech making” (Daly, Vangelisti, Neel, & Cavanaugh, 1989, p. 40), such that anxious speakers simultaneously experience several negative or distracting feelings associated with the public speaking context. For decades, Communication scholars have investigated many details surrounding the psychological and physiological aspects of public speaking anxiety, often with a view toward developing interventions that will minimize the negative effects of anxiety for public speakers. To date, however, little attention has been given to another corollary phenomenon that may hinder the communication effectiveness of individuals while making public presentations—speakers’ depression. While anxiety is generally a response to perceptions of a present or future threat (Barlow, 1988; Behnke & Beatty, 1981), depression is often “a reaction to negative outcomes that have already occurred” (Luten, Ralph, & Mineka, 1997, p. 708). Thus, it is possible that some public speakers experience the greatest degree of anxiety before and during the speech, followed by increased feelings of depression after the speech has ended, especially if their perception or evaluation of the speech performance is negative. In addition to post-speaking depression, a persistent underlying depressive trait may negatively affect a speaker’s preparation and performance, further contributing to anxious feelings about the entire speaking experience. The negative effects of depressive thoughts have been explained using learned helplessness theory (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). This theory holds that, because of previous negative experiences and/or perceived lack of control over external circumstances, some depressed individuals feel that whatever they attempt to do in the future will be futile. Student speakers with depressive thoughts, for example, might perceive an upcoming speech performance as doomed to failure, given past experience in similar contexts and/or low internal expectancies for success. According to learned helplessness theory, depressed individuals are likely to make negative internal attributions and blame anticipated or perceived failure on their own inability to succeed (Abramson et al., 1978), or in this case, to make an effective public speech. Because researchers have not yet examined depression and its effects on competent communication in the public speaking context, the purpose of this study is to explore the possible association between public speaking anxiety and depression, particularly the patterns of change in the period before, during, and after giving a public speech. The results of this investigation could provide new insight into public speaking processes and have important implications for speech instructors as they prepare student speakers to deal with the negative feelings associated with public speaking. Ultimately, a better understanding of the impact of speakers’ depression in relation to speakers’ anxiety could enable speakers to engage in more effective and appropriate communication in public presentations, one of the primary goals of communication education. Relationship between Anxiety and Depression Both anxiety and depression are unpleasant emotions, separated from one another, in part, by the amount of arousal that each produces. Feelings of low pleasure and high arousal are associated with anxiety, while feelings of low pleasure and low arousal are associated with depression (Killgore, 1999). It has been shown that anxiety and depression are related conditions in both children and adults (Lonigan, Carey, & Finch, 1994). This finding of overlap between anxiety and depression suggests that they are interrelated and often occur together, and it has 218 Anxiety and Depression been observed that “. both anxiety and depression are clinical states that represent the presence of a high degree of negative affectivity (Lonigan et al., 1994, p. 1000). In an experimental study involving individuals who were anxious, those who were depressed, and those who were both anxious and depressed, MacLeod and Byrne (1996) reported a relationship between depression and reduced positive expectancies as well as increased negative expectancies. In addition, these researchers observed a significant positive correlation between anxiety and negative expectancies. The simultaneous occurrence of anxiety and depression may be explained in part by learned helplessness theory, which suggests that an underlying trait of depression contributes to feelings of negativity concerning future events. As an individual thinks about or prepares for an upcoming encounter, negative or depressive thoughts about the event may intensify feelings of anticipatory anxiety associated with the encounter. This psychological phenomenon should be of particular interest to instructors in public speaking courses where the goal is to educate and train students as competent public speakers. If a similar depression-anxiety relationship is found in the public speaking context, then a speaker’s depressive thoughts may contribute to public speaking anxiety before, during, and after a speech performance. Such findings would suggest that, while nearly all speakers experience some degree of anxiety (fear that they may not succeed), depressed speakers also struggle with helplessness (belief that they cannot succeed). An underlying assumption of depression and anxiety research is that measurable variations occur in the intensity of the psychological and/or physiological manifestations of both of these variables. In addition to anxiety reactions in response to specific stimuli associated with an actual public speech (e.g., Daly et al., 1989), some individuals experience a persistent lifelong propensity toward speech anxiety, leading researchers to differentiate between trait anxiety as an enduring or underlying characteristic and state anxiety as a temporary condition related to a specific communication context (Reiss, 1997; Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970; Taylor, 1953). Though trait anxiety is more stable than state anxiety, the use of narrow-band anxiety measurement has revealed that some individuals experience public speaking anxiety as a dynamic trait that is subject to subtle changes at various phases of preparing and delivering a public speech (see Behnke & Sawyer, 1998 for an explanation of this methodology). Such variations in trait anxiety differ from state anxiety in that they are reported by speakers, not during the preparation or delivery of an actual speech, but in relation to their underlying attitudes and/or reactions to public speaking in general. Variations in both state and trait anxiety have been observed by researchers as they examine speech anxiety across four milestones of public speaking events: anticipation, the minute preceding the speech; confrontation, the first minute of the speech; adaptation, the last minute of the speech; and release, the minute following the speech. For example, Behnke and Sawyer (1999) found that most speakers report the greatest trait anxiety before a speech, followed by significant decline throughout the speaking and postspeaking periods. State-trait distinctions are also recognized by depression researchers (Dumenci & Windle, 1996; Endler, Macrodimitris, & Kocovski, 2003), but important differences may exist in how depression and anxiety function across speech milestones. For example, the somewhat rapid decline in anxiety during and after giving a public speech may not be mirrored by a similar pattern of reduced depression across the same time period. If depression is generally a more stable, trait-like condition that is less responsive to immediate stimuli, then the level of depression across the public speaking milestones would be less likely to change. On the other hand, if narrow-band measurement were to detect subtle variations in trait depression across the Paul L. Witt, Mendy L. Roberts and Ralph R. Behnke 219 speech milestones, scholars would have reason to consider depression as a dynamic trait similar to trait anxiety. Furthermore, if speakers perceive their performance to be a negative or unsuccessful experience, or if they feel insecure or embarrassed during the presentation, levels of depression might be found to increase after the speech, at the time when anxiety typically decreases. To examine these aspects of the relationship between anxiety and depression and the comparative patterns of change across public speaking milestones, the following hypotheses were advanced: H1: A positive correlation exists between public speaking anxiety and depression at each of the four public speaking milestones. H2: The shapes of the patterns of change in anxiety and depression differ across t