This paper, which discusses part of a more comprehensive research using the Tavistock Self-Assessment Inventory, is concerned with four kinds of general social anxiety: 1, social timidity; 2, fear of loss of control, especially bodily control; 3, fear of exhibitionism; 4, fear of revealing inferiority. The typical personality of persons with each of these anxieties is described.

The authors do not discuss the origins of these types of personality, but they believe that the situations that cause anxiety in adult life reflect certain situations in childhood. For example, the strong association of fear of loss of bodily control (one of the causes of anxiety) with fear of being on bad terms with someone in authority is perhaps an outgrowth of the infantile situation of the child who is afraid of incurring its mother's displeasure by soiling.