Avoidant personality disorder (sometimes abbreviated APD or AvPD), or anxious personality disorder, is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation. People with avoidant personality disorder often consider themselves to be socially inept or personally unappealing, and avoid social interaction for fear of being ridiculed, humiliated, or disliked. They typically present themselves as loners and report feeling a sense of alienation from society.

Research suggests that people with avoidant personality disorder, in common with social phobics, excessively monitor their own internal reactions when they are involved in social interaction. However, unlike social phobics they also excessively monitor the reactions of the people with whom they are interacting. The extreme tension created by this monitoring may account for the hesitant speech and taciturnity of many people with avoidant personality disorder. They are so preoccupied with monitoring themselves and others that producing fluent speech is difficult.

Avoidant personality disorder is defined as a pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

a) Avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears
of criticism, disapproval, or rejection;

b) Is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked;

c) Shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed;

d) Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations;

e) Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy;

f) Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others;

g) Is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they
may prove embarrassing.

Avoidant personality disorder usually is first noticed in early adulthood, and is associated with perceived or actual rejection by parent or peers during childhood. Whether the feeling of rejection is due to the extreme interpersonal monitoring attributed to people with the disorder or actual rejection is still an open question.

Avoidant personality disorder is reported to be especially prevalent in people with anxiety disorders, although estimates of comorbidity vary due to differences in diagnostic instruments. Research suggests that approximately 10-50% of the people who have a panic disorder with agoraphobia have APD, as well as about 20-40% of the people who have a social phobia. Some studies report prevalence rates of up to 45% among the people with a generalized anxiety disorder and up to 56% of the people with an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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