How to Overcome Social Anxiety | Dr. Nick Epley

Humans are constantly making assumptions about what others—people and even animals—are thinking. This tendency, as Andrew Huberman discusses, shows both our instinct to connect and the pitfalls that keep us apart. Through mind-reading, interpreting social cues, and navigating our own biases, we try to understand others’ intentions but often err, limiting our ability to connect.

Humans Mind-Read to Interpret Others' Intentions, Beliefs, and Mental States

Humans continuously infer what others are thinking or feeling. Nicholas Epley explains that this process, anthropomorphism, involves attributing a mind to any independent agent, trying to explain behavior by assuming thoughts, feelings, or beliefs drive actions. For instance, if a ball suddenly moves unpredictably, we might imagine some inner force—a mind—causing it. This tendency is applied to people, animals, and even objects or abstract entities. Interpreting another’s nod or movement, we infer motives such as kindness, friendliness, or aggression.

Inferring a Mind From Behavior and Determining Internal Drivers

This inference helps us understand what’s motivating others in the present moment and provides a framework for predicting what they may do next. For example, seeing someone reach for water, we infer they’re thirsty and may pass them the glass, illustrating how internal states are deduced from observed behavior.

Theory of Mind Helps Us Predict Actions Based On Perceived Mental States

The ability to infer and attribute mental states—Theory of Mind—enables humans to anticipate actions or needs. Epley notes that human toddlers excel at such tasks compared to chimpanzees or orangutans, particularly in social reasoning, highlighting how our brains are wired for social interpretation.

Brain Detects Social Cues Revealing Thoughts From Eye Gaze, Vocal Tone, and Behavior

To discern others’ intentions, humans rely on cues such as eye gaze, voice, and behavior.

Eyes Reveal Attention and Intention: Humans Detect Gaze Changes and Infer Thoughts

Huberman emphasizes the eyes as a unique "window into the brain." Humans are hypersensitive to where others look, using eye gaze to decipher focus, interest, or intention. Changes in someone's gaze provide powerful information about what they're thinking about or attending to, and we’re exceptional at detecting subtle gaze shifts, even at a distance.

The Human Voice Reflects Thought Through Pace, Pitch, and Emotional Tone Changes

Epley highlights the rich information conveyed through voice. Speech reveals emotions, excitement, sadness, enthusiasm, and even the process of thinking, as changes in pace or pitch signal a "lively mind." Listeners draw from these cues to more accurately grasp what someone is thinking or feeling.

Misinterpretation of Behavioral Cues Through Correspondence Bias

Despite the value of these cues, people often fall prey to correspondence bias: the tendency to assume someone's actions directly reflect their personality or intentions. For instance, seeing someone strike another, we may instantly label them aggressive, ignoring situational reasons like self-defense. This leap can be problematic, given how ambiguous behavior often is.

Social Interpretation Errors: Egocentrism, Stereotyping, and Behavioral Inference

Despite sophisticated mind-reading capabilities, our interpretations are riddled with biases.

Egocentric Bias: Assuming Others Think Like Us

Epley notes the egocentric bias—assuming others share our thoughts or perceptions. For example, feeling cold in a room, we tend to think everyone else feels the same, overestimating the similarity between our own mindset and others’.

Stereotyping Exaggerates Group Differences

With minimal information, like a person's occupation or political views, we engage in stereotyping, assuming the defining features of a group dominate individual behavior. This exaggerates perceived differences between groups and leads to inaccurate assumptions.

Oversimplified Assumptions Underestimate Others' Complexity and Rationality

Our tendency to interpret ambiguous behavior by projecting simple intentions onto others further reduces them to stereotypes or simplistic caricatures, underestimating their actual complexity and rationality.

Voice or Face Increases Perceived Intelligence, Thoughtfulness, and Humanity Compared to Text

Direct sensory cues—voice and visual presence—deeply influence our perceptions of others.

Lack of Paralinguistic Cues in Written Text

Written communication is stripped of the paralinguistic cues present in speech. Voice conveys personality, intent, and thought processes, which text cannot match. Even though many people believe writing will make them seem most intelligent, evidence shows listeners rate those they hear—either through audio or video—as more intelligent, thoughtful, and rational than those whose words are presented solely in writing.

Hearing Opposing Viewpoints Spoken Reduces Dehumanization

In experiments before the 2016 U.S. election, when participants heard (rather than just read) opposing political pitches, they rated the speakers as more rational, thoughtful, and emotionally capable, reducing the ...

Social Connection Is Key to Wellbeing: Brain Prioritizes Relationships and Coordination

Nicholas Epley explains that social connection is essential because it enables coordination and cooperation among people, which has been critical for human survival. This evolutionary advantage allows unrelated individuals to work toward common goals, amplifying what groups can accomplish far beyond what any single person could achieve alone. The neocortex—the largest part of the human brain relative to body size, especially when compared to our closest primate relatives like chimpanzees—is primarily devoted to social functions. These functions include tracking information about others, whom to trust or avoid, and using theory of mind to understand what others are thinking. The complexity of managing large social groups has driven the expansion of the neocortex in humans.

According to the social brain hypothesis, the size of the neocortex in primates correlates with the complexity of their social groups. Humans have exceptionally large neocortices, supporting the idea that our brains are especially tuned for complex social engagement and relationship management. Epley emphasizes that throughout most of human history, isolation was extremely dangerous, even fatal. Humans have evolved neural systems that reward social connection and drive us to avoid social isolation at all costs.

Loneliness: Immediate Emotional Distress & Long-Term Physical Damage

Epley and Huberman discuss how loneliness, even in the presence of abundant material resources, inflicts substantial emotional discomfort and long-term physical harm. Spending just one day alone leads to a marked decline in wellbeing, as shown by the Gallup daily wellbeing poll. The difference in happiness between people who spent the day alone and those who did not is about seven times greater than the difference made by large income gaps.

Loneliness provokes sharp increases in cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, which impairs cardiovascular and immune function, ultimately shortening the lifespan. Epley references research by John Cacioppo, highlighting that the brain’s neural wiring compels us to reach out for connection when we are alone, making loneliness feel unpleasant. This wiring is so powerful that solitary confinement in prisons causes severe psychological harm, often leading to a loss of sense of self and even insanity. The drive for social contact is deeply rooted in our need for external validation and reflected identity—without others to interact with, people often struggle with existential questions about whether they truly exist.

Connection With Others Improves Health

Social connection, even brief or minor, reliably enhances wellbeing and health. Epley shares a personal example of adopting a child with an intellectual disability, describing how bringing someone into their family led to an abundance of unanticipated joy and meaning. This reflects research showing that moving from isolation to contact reliably boosts mood and resilience. Small acts, such as exchanging greetings with strangers or others in public spaces, can light up faces and generate mutual positivity.

Texting, too, provides valuable wellbeing benefits. Sending a brief message or emoji to a friend or spouse can uplift both sender and receiver, helping maintain connection. While in-person interaction is most beneficial, digital communication through texting or social media helps people stay engaged and less alone, especially in established relationships. However, if texting replaces deeper relationship development, the benefits are limited.

Different types of social connection serve various purposes: meaningful relationships provide deep emotional support, while brief exchanges and digital contact maintain ongoing social bonds and day-to-day positivity.

Extroversion Boosts Wellbeing and Happiness; Being More Outgoing Improves Mood Regardless of Personality

There is a robust correlation between extroversion and happiness. Decades of research reveals that the relationship between extroversion and positive af ...

Nicholas Epley explains that social anxiety is highly treatable using behavioral approaches, particularly exposure therapy. He emphasizes how mistaken beliefs—rather than immutable personality traits—are often at the core of social anxiety, and discusses both clinical evidence and everyday strategies for overcoming it.

Social Anxiety Treatable With Exposure Therapy: Beliefs vs. Realistic Assessments

Epley recalls a conversation with Stefan Hoffman, a pioneer in exposure therapy for anxiety disorders, who developed the method of real-world exposure to social situations. Simply imagining or pretending to engage with strangers—such as practicing alone or giving a pretend speech—doesn’t work to relieve anxiety. The process must be real for people to update their beliefs. When people confront their fears in genuine social settings—asking for help or engaging in conversation—they discover their fears are generally misplaced.

Exposure therapy works not by dulling anxiety, but by shifting what people believe about others. Most worry about rejection, but repeated real-world interaction reveals that others are far more accepting than expected. For example, people often find that saying hello receives a friendly response, or that asking for something simple often leads to more helpfulness and engagement than anticipated.

Research Shows People Underestimate Others' Willingness to Help, Causing Unnecessary Anxiety

Epley cites research by Frank Flynn and Vanessa Bohns showing a persistent "underestimation of compliance effect": people predict they will have to ask far more individuals for help than is actually necessary. In reality, compliance is much higher than expected. Not only are others willing to help, but they also report feeling happier after doing so—contrary to the belief that requests are burdensome. People are naturally satisfied when given opportunities to be helpful.

This optimism applies to simple real-world instances, such as asking someone to take a photo or holding a door. Epley's own research confirms that pessimism about social interactions is misplaced—testing those assumptions often leads to surprisingly positive responses and more openness in social life.

Jia Jiang's Project Reveals Human Generosity and Flexibility In Testing Pessimistic Beliefs

The story of Jia Jiang illustrates the corrective power of exposure. Jiang, anxious about rejection, set out to make an unusual request every day for 100 days, aiming to encounter rejection and overcome his fear. Out of 106 requests, he was accepted 51 times and outrightly rejected 48 times; the rest resulted in alternative suggestions. The overwhelming majority of "no" responses were polite or even helpful. Only about seven of the 100 interactions involved any negativity, and even then it was mild.

Jiang’s experiences ranged from being turned down for borrowing $100 from a security guard—a moment leading to the realization rejection seldom stings as much as anticipated—to receiving custom-made Olympic ring donuts at Krispy Kreme and getting to deliver an announcement to an entire airplane after requesting to do the safety briefing. Costco declined his request to use the intercom, but the manager offered lunch instead. In every case, even rejections were warm and flexible, showing that people often look for ways to help beyond the anxious person’s expectations. Jiang concludes that repeated exposure didn’t just build thicker skin—it fundamentally changed his beliefs about human kindness and willingness.

Small Social Habits That Compound Are More Effective Than Using Willpower to Change Behavior, as Habits Become Automatic

Epley describes how transforming tiny, safe social actions into habits is more effective than occasional bursts of willpower. He adopted what he calls a "happiness walk," making it routine to look up, smile, and greet colleagues ...

Human happiness and wellbeing grow not from singular, spectacular experiences but from accumulating small positive moments throughout daily life. The simple, genuine interactions with strangers and casual acquaintances often offer some of the clearest paths to improved life quality and optimism.

Happiness and Wellbeing Arise From Accumulating Small Positive Moments

Happiness, as described, is much like a leaky tire that needs constant pumping. People tend to adapt quickly to even extraordinary events, such as an amazing trip to the Sonoran Desert. The glow from these experiences fades rapidly, replaced by daily frustrations like traffic or work stress. Thus, a good life is not defined by isolated major events, but by stringing together good moments—a few nice exchanges in a day, which then accumulate into good weeks, months, and ultimately, a good life.

Opportunities for these moments are frequent and omnipresent, from brief chats at the grocery store checkout to sharing a smile or a compliment on a plane. Recognizing life as a tapestry woven from many such small threads transforms one’s outlook, prompting attentiveness and a willingness to connect with others throughout the day.

Positive Interactions With Strangers Foster Connection to Their Entire Group, Expanding Warm Feelings Beyond the Encounter

Small acts—like complimenting a woman’s “awesome red glasses”—can profoundly boost not only that individual’s day but also the giver’s outlook on humanity. In that instance, the recipient expressed sincere gratitude, and Epley sensed she felt uplifted by people in general.

Other times, positive perceptions expand to whole groups. Meeting a young man on a train who seemed disconnected at first (earbuds in, absorbed in his phone), Epley struck up a conversation, learned about his pride in culinary school, and even shared a fist bump. This brightened Epley’s feelings about youth and vocational education overall. He describes this as the interaction not just improving his mood toward the young man, but uplifting his optimism about the broader category of youth and trade students.

Interactions like these foster a sense of collective belonging and warmth, leading to a heightened optimism about human nature as a whole. Huberman observes that the feeling of kinship even with unknown fellow members of one's species is a unique, uplifting realization—an awareness that, fundamentally, people are in this together.

Interest in Others Creates Reciprocal Responsiveness and Emotional Openness

Displaying interest in others not only garners positive interaction but invites genuine vulnerability. Epley recounts a 23-minute Uber ride in which shared curiosity led the driver to open up deeply about his imprisonment and the loss of his son amid the Iran War. This emotional exchange, far richer than a simple small talk, made an ordinary car ride one of real significance and meaning.

Genuine curiosity and openness encourage others to share more deeply than one might expect in a brief encounter. Often, the quality of connection far exceeds initial expectations, revealing how much intimacy and warmth can be generated when authentic interest is shown.

Small Acts of Kindness—Compliments, Fist Bumps, Shared Musical Interests—Foster Community and Affirm Belonging

Compliments about hats, quick fist bumps, or a shared recognition of a favorite band—such as someone shouting “minor threat” in response to a t-shirt—brighten both parties’ days. Even without the intention of sparking a lasting relationship, these micro-interactions are meaningful.

Dog parks, too, present natural opportunities for conversation and camaraderie among humans, as shared attention on pets facilitates relaxed, friendly exchanges. These fleeting yet affirming moments help cultivate a sense of community and belonging.

Micro-Interactions Are Meaningful Without Lasting Relationships; Recognizing Shared Humanity Is Key

A key insight is that these interactions do not need to lead to ongoing relationships to be valuable. The point is connection—even momentarily—through recognition of someone’s style, passion, or presence. These moments are reminders of shared humanity, often brightening a day or shifting perspectives for both parties involved.

To Overcome Pessimistic Assumptions About Others' Willingness to Interact, View Social Approaches as Invitations, Not Demands

People often misinterpret closed-off appearances—such as someone weari ...