Shy people may be hesitant to look you in the eye, but they seem to have a superior ability to recognize certain facial expressions, a new study suggests.
In the study, college-age adults who were shy were better able to recognize expressions of sadness and fear compared with those who were not shy.
The findings were surprising, said study researcher Laura Graves O'Haver, a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, given that previous work has found shy people tend to misinterpret facial expressions. However, this earlier work was typically performed on children, and the ability to recognize facial expressions may change with age, Graves O'Haver said.
The new results put a positive twist on a trait that is usually considered unfavorable, she said.
"We tend to give shy people a bad rap," but the new study suggests there are some strengths to being shy, Graves O'Haver said. "It might be nice to focus on those strengths."
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