than ﬁve people; ﬁve people may be easier to handle than ﬁfty), the length of time involved 
(for instance, a ﬁve-minute conversation vs. a thirty-minute conversation), your relationship 
with the other person (for example, a family member vs. a stranger), and so on.
Two examples of situational exposure hierarchies follow. The ﬁrst hierarchy is for a 
person with the fear of public speaking, and the second is for someone who experiences 
social anxiety in many different situations (in other words, generalized social anxiety). 
Note that the hierarchy items are very speciﬁc with respect to the duration of the prac -
tice, the types of people present, and other relevant variables. Developing speciﬁc items 
is important because it’s difﬁcult to develop practices based on overly vague hierar -
chy items. Fear and avoidance ratings are based on a scale ranging from 0 (no fear, no 
 avoidance) to 100 (maximum fear, complete avoidance).