The Fundamentals of Public Speaking

The Fundamentals of Public Speaking:

Informative Speech Preparation Outline

General Purpose: To inform my audience about the phobia arachnophobia, its causes, and the symptoms and treatments.

Specific Purpose: After hearing my speech, the audience will know more about arachnophobia (the fear of spiders), its causes, and the symptoms and treatments of this phobia.

Central Idea: I will be discussing arachnophobia (the fear of spiders) and its effects on people who suffer from this phobia.

Introduction: What if I dropped a big hairy tarantula down the back of your shirt or took you on a ski lift so high in the air that you could barely make out people at the bottom? Would you shriek? Panic? Hyperventilate? How about collapse? For people that have phobias, all of these reactions could occur, causing them to feel extreme anxiety. Phobias are irrational, persistent fears of an object, situation, or social activity (White and Ciccarelli, 2013). Today I am going to talk about a very common phobia, arachnophobia or the fear of spiders, its causes, and the symptoms and treatments of this phobia. Many of you may fear spiders, but there is a big difference between fearing something and it becoming a phobia.

Transition: Let's review the causes of arachnophobia and how certain life events could have led to the formation of this phobia.

I. The causes of arachnophobia

A. Cultural backgrounds have been found to have an effect on having arachnophobia.

1. According to the website, www.allaboutcounseling.com, arachnophobia could potentially be caused by where someone grew up. People living in Northern Africa may have a phobia of large spiders, while people in South Africa eat large spiders and have no issue.

2. People who grew up with a family that hunts and camps a lot may not have a fear of spiders, but someone who grew up mostly indoors probably has a much bigger issue with spiders.

B. Incidents that occurred earlier in life may contribute to the formation of a phobia of spiders.

1. Many people don't remember what happened to them to create a phobia, but it usually has something to do with an incident that happened when they were a child.

2. When I was a child, I got bit by a brown recluse while I was sleeping. I had to be taken to the hospital and I became very ill from the venom. The bite left a bruise the size of a football on my leg. Ever since that bite, I have had a phobia of spiders.

C. Decreased size of the left side of the amygdala correlates to arachnophobia

1. The amygdala is the part of the brain that processes memory and emotional responses. It plays a large role in phobias and how our brains process scary information.

2. According to the recent study done on arachnophobia, patients who suffer from arachnophobia shows signs of a reduced amygdala size when they see a spider. The more symptoms that were revealed when patients saw a spider, the smaller the amygdala shrank. This shows evidence that patients with a smaller left amygdala have a higher risk for becoming fearful of spiders. (Fisler, M. S., 2013)

Transition: Now that I have outlined the causes of arachnophobia, let's talk about the symptoms to recognize this.

II. The symptoms of arachnophobia.