anxiety disorder if he or she had a strong fear of public speaking but didn’t need to speak 
in front of groups and didn’t care about having the fear. On the other hand, a person 
who fears public speaking and needs to speak in front of groups (for example, a school -
teacher) might be considered to have social anxiety disorder if the criteria are all met.
Social anxiety is often a feature of other problems. For example, people with eating 
disorders may be nervous about having other people notice their unusual eating habits. 
People who wash their hands excessively due to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) 
may avoid people either for fear of being contaminated by others or for fear of having 
other people notice their OCD symptoms (such as frequent washing, red hands from 
washing, and so on). In these examples, the social anxiety would be viewed as part of 
the other problem, rather than as social anxiety disorder per se. For social anxiety dis -
order to be diagnosed as a separate problem, there must also be extreme social anxiety 
that is unrelated to any other problems that are present. For example, the person might 
have a general fear of looking stupid, appearing boring to others, or making mistakes in 
front of other people—over and above the anxiety about having others notice his or her 
compulsive washing or unusual eating habits.