Under the skin of social anxiety: Investigating the interplay between skin conductance and emotion recognition

Objective: Social anxiety is often associated with altered emotion recognition, yet the role of physiological arousal in this process is unclear. This study examined whether trait social anxiety and skin conductance responses (SCR) predict accuracy in recognizing negative and positive emotional expressions in non-clinical adults. Methods: Forty-seven participants completed an emotion recognition task using 50 validated 2-second video clips showing anger, fear, sadness, happiness, and neutral expressions. SCR was recorded during a passive viewing phase, and participants labelled the emotions in a separate second phase. Trait social anxiety was measured with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). Associations were tested using generalized and linear mixed models. Results: Emotion recognition accuracy was high across all emotions (negative: M = 0.97; positive: M = 1.00; neutral: M = .96). LSAS scores did not predict recognition accuracy for negative (p = .142) or positive emotions ...Show moreObjective: Social anxiety is often associated with altered emotion recognition, yet the role of physiological arousal in this process is unclear. This study examined whether trait social anxiety and skin conductance responses (SCR) predict accuracy in recognizing negative and positive emotional expressions in non-clinical adults. Methods: Forty-seven participants completed an emotion recognition task using 50 validated 2-second video clips showing anger, fear, sadness, happiness, and neutral expressions. SCR was recorded during a passive viewing phase, and participants labelled the emotions in a separate second phase. Trait social anxiety was measured with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). Associations were tested using generalized and linear mixed models. Results: Emotion recognition accuracy was high across all emotions (negative: M = 0.97; positive: M = 1.00; neutral: M = .96). LSAS scores did not predict recognition accuracy for negative (p = .142) or positive emotions (p = .382). SCR was not related to emotion recognition accuracy for negative (p = .907) or positive expressions, nor to social anxiety (p = .724). Conclusion: High accuracy in emotion recognition was observed regardless of social anxiety or physiological arousal. These findings suggest that, when emotions are presented clearly with sufficient contextual information, social anxiety and SCR may not influence recognition performance, although anxiety may be present without physiological indicators. Future research should investigate more ambiguous or subtle emotional stimuli to detect potential individual differences.Show less

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Under the skin of social anxiety: Investigating the interplay between skin conductance and emotion recognition