How Social Anxiety Changes The Way We Analyze Other People's Facial Expressions

Have you ever wondered if everyone sees facial expressions the same way you do? What if some people were constantly “scanning” faces for signs of rejection without even realizing it? This study reveals that people with social anxiety not only feel more anxious, they literally look at others differently. With the help of eye-tracking technology, scientists have discovered surprising patterns that show how the anxious brain interprets emotions, especially negative ones. The results could change how we understand social interactions and open avenues for more effective treatments. It's worth delving into this discovery.

Social anxiety is a disorder that causes people to feel intensely uncomfortable in social situations, mainly due to fear of judgment or rejection. An essential aspect of these interactions is the ability to interpret facial expressions, which help us understand what others are feeling.

However, people with social anxiety may perceive these expressions differently. This study investigated exactly that: how individuals with social anxiety analyze faces and emotions, especially when those expressions are in motion, as happens in real life.

Normally, when we look at a face, our eyes move relatively steadily between important regions, such as the eyes and mouth, allowing us to accurately interpret emotions. This process happens automatically and efficiently. However, in people with social anxiety, it is believed that there is a pattern called hypervigilance, in which the individual examines the face more intensely and rapidly, as if constantly looking for signs of threat or rejection.

Much of the previous research used only still images, i.e., photographs of faces. While useful, these images do not fully represent reality, since in everyday life facial expressions are in constant motion. This limits the understanding of how people actually process emotions in real social situations. This study sought to overcome this limitation by including both still images and short videos with dynamic expressions.

The study included fifty-six participants, divided into two groups: one group without social anxiety and another with symptoms of social anxiety. Participants were exposed to different faces expressing emotions such as joy, sadness, anger, and disgust. These expressions were presented at different levels of intensity, from very subtle to very evident, both in still images and short videos.

During the task, participants had to identify which emotion was being expressed. At the same time, an eye-tracking device recorded exactly where they looked, how many times their eyes moved, and how long they remained fixed on each point of the face.

Researchers analyzed two main aspects of eye movement: the number of times the gaze fixated on different parts of the face and the duration of these fixations. This data allows us to understand not only whether the person correctly recognizes the emotion, but also how they visually process the information. Comparing the two groups, it was possible to identify specific patterns associated with social anxiety.

The results showed that people with social anxiety exhibited a different pattern of visual analysis, especially when observing moving faces. They moved their eyes more frequently, but remained for less time on each point, indicating a pattern of rapid and constant observation. This behavior is characteristic of hypervigilance, as if the brain were always "scanning" the environment in search of possible threats.

Furthermore, these individuals demonstrated greater sensitivity in recognizing sadness, especially when this emotion was presented subtly. This suggests a tendency to more easily perceive negative signals, which may contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety.

The study shows that social anxiety affects not only what a person feels, but also how they perceive and interpret the world around them. The way the eyes move reveals a differentiated attention pattern, geared towards the rapid detection of possible negative signals.

In addition, the use of moving facial expressions proved more effective in capturing these differences, bringing the research closer to real life. These findings may help in the development of more targeted treatments, focused on modifying patterns of attention and perception.

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Hypervigilance to dynamic and static facial expressions in social anxiety: An eye-tracking study

Claudino RG, Garcia RB, and Torro-Alves N

Psychology & Neuroscience, 18(4), 338–348. 2025 

https://doi.org/10.1037/pne0000369

Abstract:

Research has shown attentional bias and hypervigilance in individuals with social anxiety during the observation of emotional facial expressions, particularly with static stimuli. We investigated the recognition of dynamic and static facial expressions and eye-tracking correlates. Method: Participants were 56 volunteers divided into a control group and a social anxiety group (SAG). Stimuli were emotional faces of joy, disgust, anger, and sadness presented in four emotional intensities (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) statically and dynamically. During the emotion recognition task, binocular eye movements were registered, and the number and duration of eye fixations were analyzed. Results: The SAG had a higher recognition rate only for low-intensity (25%) sadness. Both groups had a larger number of fixations for static than dynamic stimuli, as well as longer fixations for dynamic than static stimuli. Significant differences between groups were observed with dynamic stimuli, since the SAG presented a larger number of fixations and shorter durations than the control group. Conclusions: Our results revealed a negative bias toward sadness and a hypervigilance pattern during the evaluation of emotional faces, which suggests that using dynamic facial expressions may be more adequate for investigating social anxiety disorder in the future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)