Scopophobia

Scopophobia is the intense fear of being watched, scrutinized, and judged – a social fear that stems from the human need to bond to other pack creatures, because without them we are in more danger. The anxiety is intense, often to the point where the sufferer has to self-isolate to prevent the pervasive feeling of being constantly judged by others in social settings – even by close friends and family.

Researchers have studied those afflicted with scopophobia and other social anxiety-related disorders, and found that they were frequently misinterpret eye contact, body language, and voice tones to be more hostile than reality. The “cone” of gaze perception for those with anxiety-related disorders are much higher than the average person, leading to the feeling of being stared at if multiple people are in view, and misconstruing being stared at for others just looking in their general direction. They also have an enlarged sense of being singled out for attention when a second onlooker is also present.

Multiple studies have shown that those with anxiety disorders view other people’s gaze as threatening; when they clock it, the fear centres in the brain activate. As such they will avoid direct eye contact, and instead look for signs of anger or judgement in other facial features and body language to compensate – in doing so, overestimating the expression in an act called “hypervigilance”. People who are hypervigilent are good at spotting signs of anger, however, not so good at other expressions, and creates a cognative bias – percieving anger in neutral expression and actions.

Healthline. (2020). Scopophobia: The Fear of Being Started At. [online] Available at: https://www.healthline.com/health/scopophobia#eye-contact.

Anxiety and I

Up until I was about 16 I had quite severe social anxiety. I was never medicated or put in therapy for it, despite all the adults around me knowing I had anxiety, so it was something I just had to cope with by myself. Many of the symptoms of scopophobia resonant with what I used to feel, particularly the feeling of judgement, the cone of perception, and being singled out for minor instances. Feeling as though you are constantly watched, and constantly being judged, is not only exhausting, but demoralising – it makes you think you are failing at something. Maybe this is subconsciously the reason why I chose paranoia as an emotion; because I am intimately familiar with it. Luckily in my case, my anxiety disappeared in my late teens, and doesn’t affect me anymore.

Scopophobia in PARANOIA

With regular scopophobia, the consequence is judgement. As social animals, humans naturally want to fit in and be liked; jugement can lead to being outcast. However, for the Watched in PARANOIA, I am not entirely sure what the consequence for being percieved should be just yet, nor do I know what happens when you fail in your endeavour to get to the top of the tower before the timer runs out. These are things I need to consider going forwards.