Interoceptive ability moderates the effect of physiological reactivity on social judgment.

Abstract

Social judgments-that others are kind or cruel, well intentioned, or conniving-can ease or disrupt social interactions. And yet a person's internal state can alter these judgments-a phenomenon known as affective realism. We examined the factors that contribute to, and mitigate, affective realism during a stressful interview. Using data collected between 2015 and 2019, we hypothesized and found that individuals' ability (N = 161; 57.6% female; 57.6% European American, 13.6% African American, 13.6% Asian American, 6.4% Latinx, 6.0% biracial, and 2.8% that identified with none or 1+ of the races presented; M age = 19.20 years) to accurately perceive their own internal sensations (i.e., heartbeats) influenced whether they attributed their own heightened stress reactions (i.e., sympathetic nervous system reactivity) to the behavior of two impassive interviewers. Participants who were poor heartbeat detectors perceived their interviewers as less helpful, polite, or professional, and more apathetic, judgmental, and aggressive when experiencing heightened levels of cardiovascular sympathetic nervous system reactivity during their interview. Being aware of one's internal state may be one pathway to reducing bias in social perceptions in circumstances where such biases may lead us astray.

Interoception in Autism: A Narrative Review of Behavioral and Neurobiological Data

“…In addition, interoception is thought to contribute to consciousness, 1 action understanding and imitation in early infancy, 16 decision making, 17 , 18 sense of agency, 19 spatial perspective-taking, 20 and social judgment. 21 For example, our initial impressions of others tend to be influenced by visceral states, such as cardiac afferent signals. 22 , 23 Thus, interoception interacts with many other processes, including exteroception, cognition, and motor, social, and emotional processing.…”