Mystery Shopping Helps to Conquer Social Anxiety

Mystery shopping provides more than the obvious rating a company's employees and personal shopping experiences. It comes in handy for individuals struggling with social fears. Specifically, mystery shopping is helpful to people who suffer from social anxiety, a personality disorder where a person avoids social situations that involve performance evaluations and unfamiliar people. A study in 2008 by the Anxiety Disorder Association of America revealed that 15 million Americans struggle with social anxiety. Mystery shopping is ideal for people with social anxiety since they take on a role reversal in which they (the shoppers) are doing the evaluating.

Various mystery shopping opportunities exist, some more challenging than others. They may be walk-ins, drive-thrus, or phone shops in settings that include clothing retail stores, grocery stores, restaurants, movie theaters, pet stores, or cellular stores. On a social wellness standpoint, mystery shops are comparative to the assignments in a communications or psychology course, in that they push individuals outside of their comfort zones. From personal experience, I have taken a Social Psychology course where the students were assigned to publicly do something outside of the norm and to observe the reactions of others. Then, in interpersonal communication courses, students are taught to develop their social skills in assignments such as by asking a stranger for the time or by starting a conversation with a customer in a grocery store line such as commenting on an item he or she is buying.

Believe it or not, mystery shopping is a great social exercise for individuals who are undergoing or wish to undergo therapy to treat social anxiety. Many cognitive behavioral therapists use exposure as an intervention tool by exposing individuals with avoidant behavior to feared settings. Exposure involves goal setting, behavioral rehearsals, implementation, and feedback of outcome. Mystery shopping exposes individuals to social situations and provides social skills training that incorporates both assertiveness and role playing. In particular, individuals practice assertiveness by asking associates for the location of an item, for a receipt if one is not given, or for the associate's name if he or she is not wearing a badge. Also, in shops that involve auditing, shoppers must introduce themselves to the manager. Role playing is frequently involved in that shoppers are assigned to ask questions that they typically would not ask such as if they may purchase the outfit directly off of a mannequin. Also, shoppers must sometimes pretend to be interested in products that they normally don't buy such as a person who never cooks having to ask an associate from the meat department questions about the meat.

The basic concept is that mystery shopping provides an opportunity to challenge oneself. Like the exercises recommended in communications courses and cognitive behavioral therapy, mystery shopping assignments encourages individuals to interact with others by initiating conversations. Of most concern, individuals are more likely to follow through with mystery shopping assignments than with personal enrichment courses or therapy assignments since mystery shopping involves the motivating factor of compensation. All of these opportunities share the element of stepping outside of the box and recording the outcome of the experiences, which enables personal growth.

Sources

"Exposure Therapy" http://en.wikipedia.org

Reinberg, S. "15 Million Americans Suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder." Medicine Net.