A Common Human Problem Has a Name: Misokinesia

Misokinesia –– or the ‘hatred of movements’ –– is a psychological phenomenon that is defined as a strong negative affective or emotional response to the sight of someone else’s small and repetitive movements, such as seeing someone mindlessly fidgeting with a hand or foot. Among those who regularly experience misokinesia, there is a growing recognition of the challenges that it presents, as evidenced by blossoming on-line support groups. Yet surprisingly, scientific research on the topic is lacking. This article is novel in systematically examining whether misokinesia exists in the non-clinical population and if there are observable individual variability in the intensity or extent of reported misokinesia sensitivity in the general population. Across three studies that included 4100 participants, we confirmed the existence of misokinesia as a phenomenon in a non-clinical population, with approximately one-third of our participants self-reporting some degree of misokinesia sensitivity to the repetitive, fidgeting behaviors of others as encountered in their daily lives. Moreover, variability in the range of misokinesia sensitivities showed that the negative social-affective impacts that one experiences may grow with age. This study shows that a large population of the public may be suffering from something that has received little formal recognition.