The Shyness & Social Anxiety Workbook
214Here are some examples of closed-ended and open-ended questions:
Closed-Ended Questions Open-Ended Questions
UÊDid you have a good weekend? UÊWhat did you do this weekend?
UÊWho is your favorite candidate? UÊWhat do you like about the differ -
ent candidates?
UÊWhat do you do for a living? UÊHow did you get into your current 
line of work?
UÊDo you like your psychology 
professor?UÊWhy do you like your psychology 
professor?
Note that a question can be too open-ended, so that it is responded to as if it were 
a closed-ended question. For example, questions like “How are you?” or “How was your 
day?” typically lead to a one-word response such as “Fine.”
Ending Conversations
All conversations eventually come to an end. Furthermore, in informal social situa -
tions (at a party, on a date, on the phone), conversations almost always end because one 
or both people lose interest in what is being talked about or they reach a point at which 
they would rather be doing something else or talking to someone else.
If you are especially sensitive to rejection, you may become more anxious as a con -
versation nears its end. Or you may be hurt if you think that the other person seems less 
interested in continuing to converse. Nevertheless, if you begin to pay attention to other 
people’s conversations, you will notice that all discussions reach a point at which there 
is little more to be said. Sometimes this point is reached in a few seconds. Other times, 
it may take a few minutes or even an hour for a particularly interesting conversation to