Characterized by an increase in physiological arousal (e.g. increased heart rate) and an intense fear of what other people are thinking (e.g. I’m appearing incompetent), public speaking anxiety can lead to ineffective speech preparation, degraded performance quality and increased speech disturbances. Often categorized as either a trait or a state, public speaking anxiety has been linked to environmental factors such as the size of the audience as well as the number of co-presenters present.