Abstract

This study examined the effect of social anxiety on an individual's ability to empathize with others. A total of 77 college students completed self-reported social anxiety scales and cognitive and affective empathy experiment. In the experiment, participants were presented with eight clips of young adults(2 males and 2 females) talking about their positive/negative autobiographical experiences. They were continuously requested to rate the target’s emotions, or rate their own emotions while watching the clips. Based on this, the degree to which the participant accurately estimated the target's emotions was named as cognitive empathy, and the degree to which the participant felt the same emotions as the target’s emotions was named as affective empathy. Results showed a significantly negative correlation between levels of social anxiety and positive affective empathy. In addition, there was a significant difference in negative cognitive empathy between the high social anxiety group and the control group. These results suggest that individuals with high social anxiety have trouble feeling the same positive emotions as the other person shows. Moreover, individuals with clinical level of social anxiety are more sensitive to perceive the negative emotional state of others compared to individuals without clinical level of social anxiety.