A simple tactic can increase likability for socially anxious people, new research suggests

People with social anxiety often worry that others will judge them harshly, leading them to hold back from sharing personal details. A recent study shows that opening up about personal experiences increases how much others like a person and want to interact with them, regardless of the speaker’s own anxiety levels. The research, published in The Journal of Psychology, also highlights that the personal traits of the individual judging the interaction play a major role in these positive evaluations.

Social anxiety involves an intense fear of negative evaluation in social or performance situations. Individuals dealing with this condition often worry that they will fail to meet social expectations or that their peers will reject them. To protect themselves, they frequently adopt safety behaviors. These are defensive strategies, such as avoiding eye contact, staying quiet, or physically withdrawing from a group.

While these behaviors feel protective, they often create an unintended cycle. Peers might misinterpret the withdrawal as a lack of interest, unfriendliness, or aloofness. When peers react coolly in return, the anxious individual interprets this as a confirmation of their worst fears. The avoidance continues, preventing the person from experiencing positive social interactions that could challenge their anxious beliefs.

One specific behavior that anxious individuals tend to restrict is self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is the act of revealing personal thoughts, feelings, past events, and future plans to another person. In typical human relationships, people gradually shift from superficial small talk to deeper, more intimate exchanges.

Sharing personal information is a standard way people build trust and show warmth. When someone avoids doing this, they may struggle to form close bonds. Researchers Gabriela Lavinia Niță and Violeta Ștefania Rotărescu of the University of Bucharest wanted to see how varying levels of self-disclosure might change how socially anxious people are perceived.

They also wanted to shift focus away from just the person speaking to look at the person listening. Human perception is highly subjective. The researchers suspected that the listener’s own personality traits might shape how they grade someone else’s likability.

To test these ideas, the researchers designed a study involving 136 online evaluators. These participants acted as the “raters.” The researchers also selected four university students to act as the “speakers.” Two of these students had diagnosed social anxiety, and two did not. Each pair included one male and one female.

The evaluators rated each speaker at four distinct stages. First, they looked at a basic photograph of the speaker. Next, they watched a short video of the speaker sharing general personal information, such as their name, age, and hobbies. In the third stage, they viewed a video of the speaker detailing a happy memory from school. Finally, they watched a video where the speaker disclosed a sad or negative school experience.

After every stage, the evaluators filled out questionnaires rating the speaker’s likability. They also rated their desire for future interactions, which measures whether they would want to sit next to the speaker on a bus or ask them for advice.

The researchers found that sharing personal stories improved the speakers’ standing. Evaluators liked the speakers more after hearing them share positive personal stories compared to their initial impressions from just a photograph. This boost in likability applied to both the socially anxious and non-anxious speakers.

Sharing a negative experience also improved the evaluators’ desire to interact with the speakers in the future. As the speakers revealed more vulnerable aspects of themselves, the evaluators generally perceived them as more approachable. The simple act of opening up helped repair any initial hesitations the raters might have had.

Following the video ratings, the researchers conducted a second analysis focusing entirely on the 136 evaluators. These participants completed extensive surveys to measure their own personality dimensions. The surveys assessed traits like extraversion, agreeableness, and their own levels of social anxiety.

The researchers also measured the evaluators’ need for affiliation. This concept refers to a fundamental human desire to feel accepted, included, and connected within a social group. People with a high need for affiliation place a heavy priority on maintaining positive social ties.

The researchers anticipated that highly extraverted or agreeable evaluators would give out higher likability scores. Surprisingly, an evaluator’s extraversion and agreeableness did not alter their ratings. These broad personality traits did not make them any more or less generous in their judgments of the speakers.

Instead, an evaluator’s own social anxiety changed how they viewed the speakers. Evaluators who scored higher in social anxiety gave higher likability ratings to all the speakers, regardless of the speaker’s anxiety status. Anxious raters appeared to be a more lenient audience.

The same pattern emerged for evaluators with a high need for affiliation. People who strongly desired social connection provided more generous likability ratings across the board. The researchers suggest that individuals who crave acceptance are highly sensitive to any cues of social inclusion, prompting them to view others through a more positive lens.

When people want to belong, they might evaluate others leniently to avoid conflict and encourage a connection. This finding shifts the perspective on social rejection. If a socially anxious person feels disliked, it might not just be about their own behavior. The rejection could stem from the listener’s own lack of affiliative need.

While the results offer a new perspective on social dynamics, the study has several limitations. The researchers point to the halo effect, a psychological bias where a person’s physical attractiveness can inflate their perceived likability. Attractiveness could have influenced the ratings independently of the self-disclosure tasks.

The study also relied on self-reported questionnaires for the evaluators’ anxiety and personality traits. Questionnaires depend heavily on a participant’s self-awareness and honesty, which can sometimes skew the data. The length of the survey, which took nearly an hour to complete, may have caused participant fatigue, potentially leading to rushed answers.

Additionally, watching pre-recorded videos in an online format is quite different from real life. The videos lacked the immediate feedback and dynamic body language found in face-to-face interactions. In a real conversation, a socially anxious person might react poorly to unexpected pauses or the listener’s facial expressions.

Future research could use live, in-person interactions to capture the true back-and-forth of social exchanges. Observing how socially anxious individuals handle self-disclosure in real time would provide a more realistic picture of how likability forms. For now, the findings suggest that sharing a little bit about oneself is a reliable way to build a bridge with others.

The study, “Is Likeability in the Eye of the Beholder? A Quasi-Experimental Study on Personality, Social Anxiety and the Need for Affiliation in Assessing the Likability of Socially Anxious Adults,” was authored by Gabriela Lavinia Niță and Violeta Ștefania Rotărescu.