Social anxiety is characterized by persistent and excessive fear of negative evaluation by others which can lead to avoidance and physiological arousal when in social situations. Pupil size is a...Show moreSocial anxiety is characterized by persistent and excessive fear of negative evaluation by others which can lead to avoidance and physiological arousal when in social situations. Pupil size is a reliable indicator of physiological arousal and can be measured using pupillometry. Cognitive models postulate that social anxiety is related to enhanced pupil dilation, whereas empirical studies show decreased pupil dilation. This contradiction could be explained by an avoidance of processing threatening stimuli in individuals with social anxiety. Moreover, a higher degree of intimacy may lead to a higher likelihood of avoidance, resulting in greater reduction in pupil size. This study investigated the effect of social anxiety on pupil size during a face-to-face conversation task and the effect of intimacy of topic (high vs low) on this relationship. The present study had an experimental, correlational design and included 66 female participants aged between 18 and 30. Social anxiety was measured by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale questionnaire and pupil size was recorded by wearable eye-trackers. Participants had a conversation task with a confederate consisting of 18 questions. These questions were divided in three blocks of 6, wherein block 1 and 3 were low in intimacy and block 2 was high in intimacy. For the analyses the pupil size of the left, right and average of both eyes was used. For the left-eye, right-eye and average of both eyes’ pupil size, the ANCOVA revealed no main effect of social anxiety, intimacy of topic and no interaction effect between social anxiety and intimacy of topic. In the preliminary analysis, a main effect of time was found. The current study was one of the first studies that used a face-to-face conversation task with varying levels of intimacy to investigate the relationship between social anxiety and pupil size. No significant effects were found between level of social anxiety and pupil size, as well as for the effect of intimacy of topic. However, there was a significant effect found for time, with pupil size decreasing over time in all participants. More research is needed to investigate these relationships.Show less
