How High Level Anxiety Actually Results In The Misinterpretation of Facial Expressions

Being able to understand another individual’s facial expression is critical, and it is not surprising that hyper and chronic anxiety actually deteriorates our ability to do this. I say that it is not surprising because we live in an age where many of us have displaced human interaction, face to face or voice to voice, with screen time, and it is technology that heightens symptoms of anxiety in many individuals. Science is now showing that adults with clinical anxiety struggle with the task of recognizing human emotion. For example, an individual who suffers from social anxiety will be more likely to interpret a facial expression as anger or disgust, and will also be more likely to misinterpret a smile for something other than a kind smile. Additionally, those individuals struggling with chronic anxiety will be more sensitive to a fearful facial expression rather than a joyful facial expression.
Scientists are beginning to see this facial recognition issue as more of a cause underlying anxiety rather than a symptom. When an individual is more likely recognize an emotion like anger, fear, or disgust, they will also be more likely to label a facial expression as fear, anger, etc… and this can cause more anxiety for them. For example, if you were to be at a social gathering and by accident spill a drink on the floor, in reality those around you would be kind and rush to help you clean it up. However, if you do struggle with chronic anxiety then you are more likely to assume they are angry with you, thus feeding the anxiety and making you less likely to attend a social event in the future. This is certainly another fascinating component of stress, but it is important to remember that chronic anxiety and stress are behavioral neurological patterns that can be displaced through building new pathways in the brain.