Social Anxiety, IQ and Empathy: What the Research Really Shows

Originally published 2015-05-24.

Is social anxiety a sign of high intelligence or unusual empathy? The short answer is no, not in any way that lets you judge someone's IQ or character from their anxiety. A few small studies have found intriguing links between certain kinds of worry and verbal intelligence, and between social anxiety and some measures of empathy. But those findings are narrower and more mixed than the viral headlines suggested, and social anxiety disorder remains a real, treatable condition rather than a hidden talent.

Here is what the research behind the popular claim actually looked at, what it found, and what is genuinely useful to know if social situations make you anxious.

What social anxiety is

Social anxiety disorder is a common anxiety disorder in which people feel intense fear of being watched, judged or evaluated by others. Public speaking, job interviews, dating, eating in front of people or simply making small talk can trigger it. The US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) lists common signs such as blushing, sweating, trembling, a racing heart, feeling sick, expecting the worst from social encounters, and avoiding them altogether.

It is far more than shyness. For a diagnosis, the fear has to last at least six months and get in the way of work, school or relationships. It usually begins in childhood or adolescence.

It is also widespread. US survey data cited by NIMH estimate that about 7.1% of adults had social anxiety disorder in the past year and about 12.1% experience it at some point in their lives, with higher rates among women and young adults.

The verbal intelligence study

The study most often quoted in this debate was published in 2015 in the journal Personality and Individual Differences by A. M. Penney, V. C. Miedema and Dwight Mazmanian, under the title “Intelligence and emotional disorders: Is the worrying and ruminating mind a more intelligent mind?”

The researchers tested 126 undergraduate students. They measured symptoms of generalised anxiety, depression and social anxiety, along with worry, rumination (going over things repeatedly), post-event processing (replaying a social situation afterwards), and both verbal and nonverbal intelligence. Importantly, they controlled for test anxiety and the students' mood on the day, which earlier studies often did not.

The key findings were:

• Higher verbal intelligence predicted more worry and rumination.
• Higher nonverbal intelligence predicted less post-event processing, the kind of replaying that is typical of social anxiety.
• Links between verbal intelligence and generalised anxiety or depression symptoms appeared at first but lost significance once overlapping factors were accounted for.

Popular articles often claimed this study showed that socially anxious people scored higher on intelligence tests. Its published summary does not report that. Its clearest result concerns worry and rumination in a student sample, and the nonverbal finding points the other way for the thinking style most tied to social anxiety.

The SUNY Downstate IQ study

A second study came from researchers led by Jeremy Coplan at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York and appeared in Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience in 2012. It is often described as showing that people with severe anxiety have higher IQs, but it was not about social anxiety at all.

The team compared 26 patients with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and 18 healthy volunteers. The GAD group happened to have higher average IQs (about 119 versus 109). Within that group, higher IQ went along with more worry; among the healthy volunteers, higher IQ went along with less worry. The researchers also looked at brain chemistry linked to both traits.

The authors were frank about the limits: a small sample, only full-scale IQ measured, and a patient group whose IQ was already unusually high, which they described as not representative of the general population. It is an interesting hint about how intelligence and worry might interact, not evidence that anxiety signals intelligence.

What about empathy?

The empathy claim traces back to a 2011 study by Yasmin Tibi-Elhanany and Simone Shamay-Tsoory at the University of Haifa, published in the Israel Journal of Psychiatry. They compared 21 people with high social anxiety and 22 with low social anxiety, grouped by questionnaire scores rather than clinical diagnosis.

The results were mixed. The highly anxious group reported stronger emotional empathy and was more accurate at judging others' emotional states on a computer task, but less accurate on the matching task about others' thoughts and intentions. Once general anxiety was taken into account, social anxiety was linked more to cognitive measures of empathy. The authors called for larger studies with diagnosed patients.

Later work has looked at empathy as a possible strength in treatment. A 2022 trial by Bernadette von Dawans and colleagues found that in patients with social anxiety disorder, higher emotional and cognitive empathy helped buffer the effect of stress on their social behaviour. That is useful clinically, but it is not the same as saying anxiety creates empathy.

Why the “anxious means smart” idea is misleading

It is easy to see why this idea spreads. For people who struggle with anxiety, hearing that it comes with hidden gifts feels like a relief. But there are good reasons for caution:

• Small, specific samples. The studies involved dozens or a little over a hundred people, often students or a selected patient group.
• Different conditions mixed together. Worry, generalised anxiety, depression and social anxiety are related but distinct. Findings about one do not automatically apply to the others.
• Correlation is not cause. Even a real link does not mean anxiety makes people smarter or that being smart causes anxiety.
• Broader evidence points the other way. The Penney team noted that anxiety and depression symptoms have usually been linked with lower scores on intelligence tests, partly because distress interferes with performance.
• Flattering labels can delay help. If anxiety is framed as a sign of brilliance, people may feel less entitled to treatment, or feel they must prove a special talent to justify their struggle.

The original version of this claim also linked anxiety to spirituality and intuition. There is no solid research showing that socially anxious people can “predict” situations or are more spiritual. A heightened alertness to possible social threats is better understood as part of how anxiety works than as a sixth sense.

What genuinely helps

The more hopeful message is that social anxiety disorder is common and treatable. According to NIMH, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), including gradual exposure to feared situations, is the most widely used and well-supported psychological approach. Some people are also helped by medication or by acceptance-based therapies, and support groups can be a useful addition.

If anxiety in social situations is affecting your work, studies, relationships or wellbeing, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional. They can assess what you are experiencing and explain the options that fit you.

In the meantime, some everyday perspective can ease the pressure:

• Your worth does not depend on whether your anxiety comes with a special talent.
• Noticing others' feelings is a real strength, whether or not anxiety plays a part in it.
• Thoughtful, sensitive people exist across the whole range of anxiety levels, and so do anxious people with every kind of mind.

If you are ever in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, contact local emergency services or a crisis line right away; in the United States you can call or text 988.

Sources: NIMH: Social Anxiety Disorder: More Than Just Shyness; NIMH: Social Anxiety Disorder statistics; NIMH: Anxiety disorders; Penney, Miedema & Mazmanian (2015), Personality and Individual Differences 74: 90–93; Coplan et al. (2012), Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience; Tibi-Elhanany & Shamay-Tsoory (2011), Israel Journal of Psychiatry; von Dawans et al. (2022), Frontiers in Psychiatry; earlier coverage by Learning Mind.