Kindness is a social lubricant for socially anxious people

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 1 (UPI) -- Doing good is good for you, especially if you're socially anxious.

Social anxiety can be a debilitating psychological condition. Beyond being shy, people with social anxiety often avoid forming relationships, and miss out on important human connections. Forget intimacy, socially anxious people can have trouble feeling comfortable with even the closest of friends.

But a new study suggests a remedy may be kindness -- or performing acts of kindness. Doing good for others, scientists in Canada recently found, provokes a more positive view of the world and the potential for human bonds.

Researchers Jennifer Trew of Simon Fraser University and Lynn Alden of the University of British Columbia came to the revelation after intervention strategies on social anxious students. After recruiting 115 college students with social anxiety issues, researchers divided the study participants into three groups.

Over the course of a month, one group was tasked with performing acts of kindness -- doing their roommate's dishes, for example, or mowing their neighbors lawn. Another group was exposed to different socialization scenarios, while the third was simply asked to keep a diary.

At the conclusion of the study, those who had lent a helping hand to others reported lower levels of apprehension about social interaction.

"Acts of kindness may help to counter negative social expectations by promoting more positive perceptions and expectations of a person's social environment," Trew said in a press release. "It helps to reduce their levels of social anxiety and, in turn, makes them less likely to want to avoid social situations."

"An intervention using this technique may work especially well early on while participants anticipate positive reactions from others in response to their kindness," added Alden.

The work of Trew and Alden was published this week in the journal Motivation and Emotion.