Social Anxiety and Gaze Aversion: Manipulating Eye Contact in a Social Interaction

observation studies have produced mixed findings (Farabee et al., 1993;Walters & Hope, 1998;Weeks et al., 2011).The goals of the current study were to test the validity of a self-report measure of gaze aversion (the GARS; Schneier et al., 2011) and to test the theory that individuals with higher social anxiety avoid eye contact in an effort to regulate state anxiety.Participants completed a short social interaction with another undergraduate participant in which eye contact was manipulated halfway through the interaction.Participants were instructed to make either more, less, or continue as before.As expected, the GARS and self-reported social anxiety were related to self-and partner-report of eye contact.Contrary to expectation, being asked to make less eye contact was the most anxiety-provoking condition for participants with higher social anxiety.We propose that avoiding eye contact in an effort to regulate state anxiety is an ineffective strategy for individuals with higher social anxiety.