title: Habits, tics, and stuttering. Prevalence and relation to anxiety and somatic awareness.
abstract: This study examines the prevalence of nervous habits, tics and stuttering in 256 college students, as well as the relationship between these behaviors and self-reported general anxiety and awareness of bodily sensations. Improving on previous studies, this study strengthens the operational definition of a nervous habit by using a more stringent operational definition, giving what is arguably a more valid set of prevalence statistics. Participants were asked to complete self-report measures of general anxiety and somatic awareness. Relationships were found between number of nervous habits and tics that participants endorsed and their self-reported awareness of bodily sensations, as well as between number of habits endorsed and self-reported general anxiety. This article concludes with suggestions for future research in the area of nervous habits and motor tics.
authors.affiliation: North Dakota State University, USA.
authors.forename: D W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.forename: R G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Miltenberger
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Flach
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D001143:Arousal; D001364:Awareness; D005260:Female; D006184:Habits; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D013342:Stuttering / Q000523:psychology*; D013981:Tic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*