Social sensitivity: a shared feature of all phobias.

The prominence of a variety of social fears among types of phobia was examined. Responses of 80 agoraphobics, 25 social phobics and 35 specific phobics to Wolpe's (1983) Fear Survey Schedule were factor-analysed. Factors of social sensitivity (accounting for 24 out of 50 per cent of the variance), agoraphobia (7 per cent), blood injuries (5 per cent) and five other small specific phobic factors were extracted. On social sensitivity, agora- and social phobics overlapped; specific phobics were significantly lower than social phobics. On agoraphobia scores, agoraphobics scored significantly higher than social and specific phobics. A regression analysis was performed to assess the relative contribution of the diagnostic groups to each factor. Social sensitivity may be a normal evolved mechanism that is protective in social interactions.