Misokinesia

Misokinesia is a condition marked by a strong negative emotional or physiological response to the sight of movements made by other people, such as fidgeting, leg shaking, hair twirling, and others. It is often described as a "hatred of movements" and can lead to feelings of annoyance, anger, and notable anxiety, including physical symptoms such as sweating and nausea. There is no formal diagnosis for misokinesia, and the cause is currently unknown.

Misokinesia can result in many social challenges, such as obtacles in mantaining positive social relationships, and struggles to effectively communicate when it comes to the condition. A common coping mechanism includes obscuring the person moving from view, and some have even found that copying the action causes the movement to disturb them less.

Misokinesia, while thought to be quite prevalent, was only formally reported in 2021, so there has been little awareness or research of it. Misokinesia is commonly comorbid with misophonia; in a sample of over one thousand adults from Amazon Mechanical Turk, 25.5% reported having both misokinesia and misophonia.

References

  1. ↑ "What is misokinesia?". soQuiet Misophonia Advocacy. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Jaswal, Sumeet M.; Levere, Drake; Handy, Todd C. (2024-12-04). "I struggle with your fidgeting: A qualitative study of the personal and social impacts of misokinesia". PLOS ONE. 19 (12) e0313169. Public Library of Science. Bibcode:2024PLoSO..1913169J. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0313169. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 11616835. PMID 39630651.
  3. ↑ Jaswal, Sumeet M.; Handy, Todd C. (2024-07-29). "Is misokinesia sensitivity explained by visual attentional orienting? ERP evidence from an emotional oddball task suggests no". PLOS ONE. 19 (7) e0306464. Bibcode:2024PLoSO..1906464J. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0306464. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 11285937. PMID 39074092.
  4. 1 2 Jaswal, Sumeet M.; De Bleser, Andreas K. F.; Handy, Todd C. (2021-08-26). "Misokinesia is a sensitivity to seeing others fidget that is prevalent in the general population". Scientific Reports. 11 (1): 17204. Bibcode:2021NatSR..1117204J. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-96430-4. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 8390668. PMID 34446737.
  5. ↑ Cherchi, Marcello (2025), Cherchi, Marcello (ed.), "Misokinesia", Otoneurology and Vestibular Medicine: A Clinical Handbook, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, p. 549, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-94841-1_106, ISBN 978-3-031-94841-1, retrieved 2026-10-24{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)