Biting our nails, constantly touching our hair or fidgeting when we’re stressed can make us more likeable and subtly encourage those around us to act more positively towards us.
- The accuracy with which recruiters were able to detect participants’ stress was related to the number of social relationships they reported having.
- “Our team is currently investigating whether young children also exhibit this sensitivity to stressful states.”
“Physiological and psychological stress are accompanied by non-verbal behaviors in a large number of species. The function of these behaviors is not well understood, but it is often assumed that they are interpreted by others as a signal to stress. Showing signs of weakness is, however, difficult to understand from an evolutionary point of view”, wrote researchers from the University of Portsmouth, England, in a study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
As part of this work, scientists have tried to understand why humans show their stress through certain signs, such as nail biting, fidgeting or touching their hair, which could tell others that they are in a state of weakness.
“Here, we test whether certain behaviors and gestures are reliable indicators of stress in human beings,” the authors said. To carry out the study, they filmed 31 people who took part in a fictitious presentation and interview that they had to prepare in a very short time. The videos were shown to 133 recruiters, who were asked how stressed they thought the participant was.
Showing signs of stress to gain support from others
Volunteers who reported feeling more stressed while performing the task were perceived as more stressed by recruiters. “Therefore, certain behaviors can provide reliable information to others and can be considered communicative”, can we read in the works. According to the results, participants who were identified as being more stressed during the experiment were also rated as more likable by recruiters, which may provide some insight into why humans report stress through the bias of certain behaviors. Recruiters were also more likely to act more positively towards them.
“If certain behaviors result in positive social interactions from people who want to help you, rather than negative social interactions from those who want to compete with you, then those behaviors are likely to be selected for in the evolutionary process. We We’re a highly cooperative species compared to many other animals, and that might explain why the signs that show our weakness may have evolved.” said Jamie Whitehouse, author of the study, in a statement.
