Gaze direction differentially affects avoidance tendencies to happy and angry faces in socially anxious individuals
Open accessAbstract
Increasing evidence indicates that eye gaze direction affects the processing of emotional faces in anxious individuals. However, the effects of eye gaze direction on the behavioral responses elicited by emotional faces, such as avoidance behavior, remain largely unexplored. We administered an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) in high (HSA) and low socially anxious (LSA) individuals. All participants responded to photographs of angry, happy and neutral faces (presented with direct and averted gaze), by either pushing a joystick away from them (avoidance) or pulling it towards them (approach). Compared to LSA, HSA were faster in avoiding than approaching angry faces. Most crucially, this avoidance tendency was only present when the perceived anger was directed towards the subject (direct gaze) and not when the gaze of the face-stimulus was averted. In contrast, HSA individuals tended to avoid happy faces irrespectively of gaze direction. Neutral faces elicited no approach-avoidance tendencies. Thus avoidance of angry faces in social anxiety as measured by AA-tasks reflects avoidance of subject-directed anger and not of negative stimuli in general. In addition, although both anger and joy are considered to reflect approach-related emotions, gaze direction did not affect HSA's avoidance of happy faces, suggesting differential mechanisms affecting responses to happy and angry faces in social anxiety.
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The present findings may lend support for potential therapeutic benefits of OT for psychiatric disorders such as social anxiety and autism exhibiting altered approach/avoidance towards social stimuli.
“Moreover, within this context, the present findings may lend support for potential therapeutic benefits of OT for psychiatric disorders such as social anxiety and autism exhibiting altered approach/avoidance towards social stimuli (Heuer et al., 2007; Davis et al., 2010; Roelofs et al., 2010; Tanaka and Sung, 2016).”
From Oxytocin facilitates approach behavior to positive social stimuli via decreasing anterior insula activity (2018) · cites this paper as Roelofs et al., 2010
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- Authors
- Roelofs, K., Putman, P., Schouten, S., Lange, W.-G., Volman, I., & Rinck, M.
- Affiliations
- Leiden University (NL)
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- Venue
- Behaviour Research and Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-04
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 290-294
- ISSN
- 0005-7967 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2151516677
- Cited by
- 166
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 9.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Behaviour Research and Therapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (#452-07-008)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- social anxiety, gaze direction, emotional face processing, approach-avoidance behavior, angry faces, happy faces, averted gaze, direct gaze, threat perception
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Anger, Anxiety Disorders, Eye Movements, Facial Expression, Female, Happiness, Humans, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Photic Stimulation, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reaction Time, Social Behavior, Task Performance and Analysis, Visual Perception, Young Adult
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