Social anxiety, in its many forms, is epidemic. About 40 percent of Americans think of themselves as shy, while only 20 percent say they have never suffered from shyness at some point in their lives. Shyness occurs when a person's apprehensions are so great that they inhibit his making an expected or desired social response; symptoms of shyness can be as minor as failing to make eye contact when speaking to someone, or as major as avoiding conversations whenever possible. 'Shy people tend to be too preoccupied with themselves,' said Jonathan Cheek, a psychologist at Boston College who is one of those at the forefront of current research on the topic. 'For example, for a smooth conversation, you need to pay attention to the other persons' cues--what he is saying and doing. But the shy person is full of worries about how he seems to the other persons, and so he often misses cues he should pick up; the result is an awkward lag in the conversation. Shy people need to stop focusing on themselves and switch their attention to the other persons.' Nevertheless, shy people by and large have better social abilities than they think they do. When Dr, Cheek videotaped shy people talking to strangers, and then had raters evaluate how socially skilled the people were, he found that, in the eyes of other people, the shy group had few obvious problems. But when he asked the shy people themselves how they had done, they were unanimous in saying that they had been social flops. Shy people are their own worst critics and in general they feel they are being judged more positively than they actually are, they always overestimate how obvious their social anxiety is to others. Not all self-consciousness leads to social anxiety, in the view of Arnold Buss, one of the first psychologists to study the phenomenon. The garden-variety of self-consciousness, Dr. Buss has written, is simply an introspective awareness of one's thoughts and feelings. What he calls 'public self-consciousness,' on the other hand, is a powerful perception of oneself as the object of social scrutiny. The latter is the root of social anxiety. Social anxiety generally creates three different kinds of problems, which can occur separately or in tandem. For some people, their social anxiety is primarily cognitive: they suffer from repetitive thoughts expressing their fear of making a poor impression, such as 'He must think I'm an idiot,' or 'I can't think of anything to say.' Other people, though, experience their social anxiety almost entirely through physiological symptoms, such as blushing, a pounding heart, or sweating in social situation. In either case, these symptoms lead to a set of behavioral ones: for example, not being able to speak although one wants to, or a general social awkwardness. [A] the fear of making a bad impression is frequently shown. [B] shyness appears. [C] the root cause of social anxiety. [D] how a person perceives himself as the object of social scrutiny. [E] they had been social losers. [F] body symptoms, like sweating in social situation. [G] that he often ignores cues he should pick up. When a person's anxieties stop his expected or desired social reactions, ______