EFFECTS OF SELF MANAGEMENT AND COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING TECHNIQUES ON SOCIAL ANXIETY BEHAVIOURS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RIVERS STATE

Authours: ALLEN CHUKWUMELA ONYIJE, Ph.D & DINICHUKWU HOPE ONYIJE
Introduction
Every student, no matter his or her educational level, is expected to exhibitsome levels
ofsociability.The students are expected to be in good social contact and relationship with their
peers, teachers and significant others. The students are also expected to relate in confidence,
become assertive and maintain social and emotional balance when speaking to themselves and
otherswhomay come their way.
However, it has been observed that some students operate at a low level of their
sociability as a result of poor self-esteem and self-concept. Such students rarely engage in
social interaction with others and are therefore regarded as social anxiety students (Nnodum,
2010). Social anxiety which is the tendency to feel award and anxious during public
presentation, manifest at the age level of 11-13 which falls within the junior secondary school
level. Students impacted with social anxiety behaviour express poor interpersonal
relationship, low performance in negotiating relationship and thistherefore affect their quality
oflife and other ways ofrelating and doing thingstogether with other persons.
Students naturally appreciate and enjoy associating and negotiating relationships
among themselves. This behavioural disposition impact and influence positively on the
quality of lives of people including junior boarding secondary school students. Shyness, fear
and neuroticism are friendly with social anxiety which do not allow competence to develop
among students. Such fear resultsfrom strange objects, persons, images, and darkness, among
others. Fear too may also result from threat of failure, incompetence and perceived negative
consequences. It can also arise from physiological conditions in which people experience
extreme distress and discomfort at the developmentalstage of life. The social anxiety students
easily become sad, emotionally disturbed, socially aggrieved and agitated for prolonged
periods of time and also could express poor cognitive achievements in school. The
development could have some implications not only on their balanced emotion, well-being,
behavioural health and learning but also on the society that may require the services of the
studentsin latertime.
Social anxiety behaviour manifest during social nights of the students like drama ,
dance, quiz, symposium, questions and answer sessions in the class and debate presentations
(Tracy, 2017 ). Some of the physical symptoms of social anxiety according to Onyekuru and
Okpara (2015) are over heighten arousal feelings of worry,self-deprived thoughts, tension and
somatic feelings, shortness of breath, restlessness, fidgeting, shaking, vibrations, headache,
sweating, stomach complications and upset. These are serious threats to healthy living and
optimal learning performance as students. Social anxiety behaviour may come inform of
interference, inhibitions and disequilibrium which allow the victims to stammer and struggle
with words, when interacting with eitherstrange orfamiliar people (Ikpeazu & Njoku, 2010).
The victims of this problem will likely withdraw from class activities such as asking
and answering of questionsfrom the teacher and others and will not participate in many social…