United States: Experts indicate that the distress produced by watching others fidget is a common psychological phenomenon that frequently happens to a third of the population.
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The medical term for “movement hatred” is misokinesia, but experts have only recently studied it despite its documented relation to the sound-related condition called misophonia.
The researchers suggest that miso kinesia functions like its auditory counterpart, yet people usually trigger this reaction with visual cues instead of sound stimuli.
According to a team of researchers, led by first author and psychologist Sumeet Jaswal, then at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, “[Misokinesia] 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,” sciencealert.com reported.
Little-Known Psychological Condition
“Yet surprisingly, scientific research on the topic is lacking,” Jaswal added.
Jaswal, along with researchers, examined misokinesia through an in-depth scientific study, which confirmed that many people experience increased sensitivity to fidgeting.
What the New Study Reveals
Scientists studied over 4,100 participants across multiple studies to assess how widespread misokinesia affected university students and general population members.
They evaluated the effects of such sensations and attempted to uncover the potential factors that trigger these experiences.
😣 Does chewing, tapping, or pen-clicking drive you up the wall? You mightnot just be irritable—it could be misophonia. Let's breaks down the science behind misophonia and why certain sounds feel unbearable.#MedTwitter #misophonia https://t.co/cQYDgxBnzC
— MedBound Times (@medboundtimes) April 5, 2025
As the researchers explained, “We found that approximately one-third self-reported some degree of misokinesia sensitivity to the repetitive, fidgeting behaviors of others as encountered in their daily lives,” sciencealert.com reported.
“These results support the conclusion that misokinesia sensitivity is not a phenomenon restricted to clinical populations, but rather, is a basic and heretofore under-recognized social challenge shared by many in the wider, general population,” he added.