[ad_1]
When someone near you is agitated, it can be annoying. Distracting. Even atrocious. But why?
Feelings of stress triggered by seeing others fidget are extremely common psychological phenomena, affecting up to one in three people, according to a unique new study.
Called misokinesis – meaning “hatred of movement” – this strange phenomenon has been little studied by scientists, but has been noted in research for a related disease, misophonia: a disorder in which people get irritated when hearing some repetitive sounds.
Misokinesis is somewhat similar, but the triggers are usually more visual than aural, the researchers say.
“[Misokinesia] is defined as a strong affective or negative emotional response to seeing someone else’s small, repetitive movements, such as seeing someone move mindlessly with a hand or a foot, ”a team of researchers, led by the first author and doctoral student in psychology Sumeet Jaswal from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, explains in a new article.
“Yet, surprisingly, scientific research on the subject is lacking.”
To improve our understanding, Jawal and his fellow researchers have conducted what they say is the “first in-depth scientific exploration” of misokinesis – and the results indicate that increased sensitivity to agitation is something that many of people have to manage.
Through a series of experiments involving more than 4,100 participants, the researchers measured the prevalence of misokinesia in a cohort of university students and people from the general population, assessing the impacts it had on them and exploring why sensations could arise.
“We found that about a third reported some degree of misokinesis sensitivity to repetitive and restless behaviors of others as they are encountered in their daily lives,” the researchers explain.
“These results support the conclusion that susceptibility to misokinesis is not a phenomenon limited to clinical populations, but rather, is a fundamental and heretofore under-recognized social challenge shared by many in the general population at large.”
According to the analysis, misokinesia sometimes goes hand in hand with the sonic sensitivity of misophonia, but not always. The phenomenon appears to vary widely from individual to individual, with some people reporting low sensitivity to agitated stimuli, while others feel very affected.
“They experience a negative emotional impact and experience reactions such as anger, anxiety or frustration, as well as reduced pleasure in social situations, work and learning environments,” says the psychologist at the UBC, Todd Handy.
“Some even pursue less social activities because of the disease.”
Handy began researching misokinesis after a partner told her he was restless and confessed that she felt stress when agitated (or someone else for that matter) .
“As a visual cognitive neuroscientist, it really piqued my interest in finding out what’s going on in the brain,” Handy said.
So the million dollar question still arises: why do we find the hustle and bustle so boring?
In the study, researchers performed tests to see if people’s misokinesia could stem from increased visual and attentional sensitivity, which is tantamount to an inability to block bothersome events occurring in their visual periphery.
Results based on early experiments were inconclusive on this front, as researchers found no strong evidence that visual reflective attentional mechanisms substantially contribute to sensitivity to misokinesia.
While we’re really only at the beginning of exploring where misokinesis can come from on a cognitive level – other than, you know, the fact that restless people are a little boring – researchers have some hypothetical leads. that they wish to continue in their future research. .
“One possibility we want to explore is that their ‘mirror neurons’ are at play,” Jaswal explains.
“These neurons activate when we move, but they also activate when we see others move… For example, when you see someone hurt themselves, you can also wince, because their pain is reflected in your own brain. “
By extension, it is possible that people prone to misokinesia subconsciously sympathize with the psychology of the agitated. And not in a good way.
“One of the reasons people get agitated is because they are anxious or nervous. So when people with misokinesia see someone fidgeting, they can reflect it and feel it too. anxious or nervous, ”says Jaswal.
As to whether this is really what is happening here with misokinesis, only further research into the phenomenon will be able to say for sure.
One thing is certain, however. From the results seen here, it is clear that this unusual phenomenon is much more common than we thought.
“To those who suffer from misokinesia, you are not alone,” Handy says. “Your challenge is common and it is real.”
The results are reported in Scientific reports.
[ad_2]
Source link