All eyes on me?! Social anxiety and self-directed perception of eye gaze

Schulze, Lars; Lobmaier, Janek S.; Arnold, Manuel; Renneberg, Babette (2013). All eyes on me?! Social anxiety and self-directed perception of eye gaze. Cognition and emotion, 27(7), pp. 1305-1313. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 10.1080/02699931.2013.773881

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To date, only little is known about the self-directed perception and processing of subtle gaze cues in social anxiety that might however contribute to excessive feelings of being looked at by others. Using a web-based approach, participants (n=174) were asked whether or not briefly (300 ms) presented facial expressions modulated in gaze direction (0°, 2°, 4°, 6°, 8°) and valence (angry, fearful, happy, neutral) were directed at them. The results demonstrate a positive, linear relationship between self-reported social anxiety and stronger self-directed perception of others' gaze directions, particularly for negative (angry, fearful) and neutral expressions. Furthermore, faster responding was found for gaze more clearly directed at socially anxious individuals (0°, 2°, and 4°) suggesting a tendency to avoid direct gaze. In sum, the results illustrate an altered self-directed perception of subtle gaze cues. The possibly amplifying effects of social stress on biased self-directed perception of eye gaze are discussed.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Cognitive Psychology, Perception and Methodology > Biologische Psychologie (SNF) [discontinued]

UniBE Contributor:

Lobmaier, Janek Simon

Subjects:

100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology

ISSN:

0269-9931

Publisher:

Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

Language:

English

Submitter:

Janek Simon Lobmaier

Date Deposited:

16 May 2014 18:32

Last Modified:

02 Mar 2023 23:24

Publisher DOI:

10.1080/02699931.2013.773881

PubMed ID:

23438447

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.49221

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/49221

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