Look at me: The relation between empathy and fixation on the emotional eye-region in low vs. high social anxiety

Background and objectives: Fixation on another person's eye-region may be an effective measure of one's level of empathy. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that this type of empathy measure may not be appropriate for individuals with high levels of social anxiety, since avoidance or hypervigilance attentional biases towards emotional faces are frequent in this condition. Methods: Using eye-tracking, we measured fixation time on the eye-region of another person in participants with low vs. high social anxiety, and we correlated this measure with empathy levels. In a second eye-tracking task, the two groups of participants were presented with pairs of emotional-neutral faces to determine the presence of attentional biases. Results: While participants with low social anxiety showed an association between empathy and fixation time on the other person's eyes, the association was null for participants with high social anxiety. Attentional biases towards emotional faces were absent in high social anxiety, but social anxiety correlated negatively with fixation on the eye region. Limitations: Our sample was made up of Psychology undergraduates, and this may have had an influence on gaze behavior towards the eye region. Conclusion: Fixation on the eye region is not a valid measure of empathy in high social anxiety, possibly due to systematic eye-region avoidance.