Socially anxious individuals lack unintentional mimicry

Abstract

So far, evidence for unskilled social behavior in high socially anxious individuals (HAS) is equivocal. One reason may be that shortcomings are often not directly observable. An important shortcoming would be a lack of unintentional mimicry because it communicates sympathy and rapport with the interaction partner. Therefore, we tested whether HAs show less unintentional mimicry of others. Twenty-nine HAs and 43 low socially anxious individuals (LAs) - all female - watched a virtual man (avatar) who displayed a fixed set of head movements while giving an opinionated speech. Four raters scored whether the participants mimicked the avatar's movements within 4 s. the results indicate that HAs did indeed mimic significantly less than LAs. Lacking such pro-social behavior, HAs may indeed be evaluated as less sympathetic by others, confirming their fears of being disliked.