Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion

We present here new evidence of cross-cultural agreement in the judgement of facial expression. Subjects in 10 cultures performed a more complex judgment task than has been used in previous cross-cultural studies. Instead of limiting the subjects to selecting only one emotion term for each expression, this task allowed them to indicate that multiple emotions were evident and the intensity of each emotion. Agreement was very high across cultures about which emotion was the most intense. The 10 cultures also agreed about the second most intense emotion signaled by an expression and about the relative intensity among expressions of the same emotion. However, cultural differences were found in judgments of the absolute level of emotional intensity.     

Aggressor's response to the victim's facial expression of emotion

Male college students (N = 96) were met by an experimental confederate who either agreed or disagreed with their opinion. The subjects were then given an opportunity to deliver electric shock to the confederate (victim), who responded to the shock with a facial expression of anger, fear, joy, or neutrality. The opinion condition had no effect, but the victim's facial expressions were clearly perceived by the subjects and two of them significantly influenced the amount of shock delivered to the victim by the subjects. The expression of enjoyment (smile) increased aggression while that of anger decreased aggression. The effects of the fear and neutral expressions did not differ from each other, and neither had a consistent significant effect on the amount of shock administered by the subjects.     

Behavioural responses to facial and postural expressions of emotion: An interpersonal circumplex approach

While the recognition of emotional expressions has been extensively studied, the behavioural response to these expressions has not. In the interpersonal circumplex, behaviour is defined in terms of communion and agency. In this study, we examined behavioural responses to both facial and postural expressions of emotion. We presented 101 Romanian students with facial and postural stimuli involving individuals (‘targets’) expressing happiness, sadness, anger, or fear. Using an interpersonal grid, participants simultaneously indicated how communal (i.e., quarrelsome or agreeable) and agentic (i.e., dominant or submissive) they would be towards people displaying these expressions. Participants were agreeable‐dominant towards targets showing happy facial expressions and primarily quarrelsome towards targets with angry or fearful facial expressions. Responses to targets showing sad facial expressions were neutral on both dimensions of interpersonal behaviour. Postural versus facial expressions of happiness and anger elicited similar behavioural responses. Participants responded in a quarrelsome‐submissive way to fearful postural expressions and in an agreeable way to sad postural expressions. Behavioural responses to the various facial expressions were largely comparable to those previously observed in Dutch students. Observed differences may be explained from participants’ cultural background. Responses to the postural expressions largely matched responses to the facial expressions.     

Ethnic differences in affect intensity,emotion judgments,display rule attitudes,and self-reported emotional expression in an American sample

Research of the past two decades has shown that cultures exert considerable influence over emotion. Most, if not all, of the cross-cultural research reported to date have been on samples obtained in different countries. Although it is important to address questions of cross-cultural similarities and differences via the testing of between-country differences, we need to be concerned with possible cultural differenceswithin countries as well. The assessment of cultural differences within countries would have implications for not only our conceptual understanding of cultural influences on emotion, but also our empirical methods and procedures. In this study, American subjects were self-classified into one of four ethnic groups, and provided us with data concerning affect intensity, display rule attitudes, self-reported emotional expression, emotion labeling, and intensity ratings. The results indicated considerable differences in emotion judgments, display rules, and self-reported emotional expressions as a function of ethnicity within an American sample. The differences are discussed in terms of the need to search for psychologically meaningful and relevant definitions of culture which would cut across ethnicity or country.     

Self-focused attention,facial behavior,autonomic arousal and the experience of emotion

Two experiments examined alternative explanations for the Scheier and Carver(1977) results linking self-focused attention to increased responsivity to emotional stimuli. In both studies autonomic, expressive, and self-report measures of emotional arousal failed to confirm the earlier findings. An individual difference measure reported by others to parallel the effects of situationally manipulated self-attention also failed to confirm the previously reported findings. Though in direct contradiction to Scheier and Carver's results, the results are consistent with a facial feedback hypothesis and with previous findings on the effects of expressive inhibition on self-reports of emotional arousal.This research was supported in part by NSF grant 77-08926 to the first author and by NIMH grant MH 29446 to the third author, as well as by funds from the Lincoln Filene Endowment to Dartmouth College.     

Evolving judgments of terror risks: foresight, hindsight, and emotion

The authors examined the evolution of cognitive and emotional responses to terror risks for a nationally representative sample of Americans between late 2001 and late 2002. Respondents' risk judgments changed in ways consistent with their reported personal experiences. However, they did not recognize these changes, producing hindsight bias in memories for their judgments. An intensive debiasing procedure failed to restore a foresightful perspective. A fear-inducing manipulation increased risk estimates, whereas an anger-inducing manipulation reduced them-both in predictions (as previously observed) and in memories and judgments of past risks. Thus, priming emotions shaped not only perceptions of an abstract future but also perceptions of a concrete past. These results suggest how psychological research can help to ensure an informed public.     

Response differentiation to facial expression of emotion as increasing exposure duration

This study investigated whether the underlying structure of responses to facial expressions of emotion would emerge when the exposure time was increased. 25 participants judged facial photographs presented for varying durations of exposure, ranging from 4 msec. to 64 msec. in 4-msec. steps. A dual scaling method was carried out to analyze possible response differentiation as a function of exposure time. Two major components were extracted. Based on the configuration of variables they were interpreted as valence (hedonic tone) and activation. Results indicated that a positive emotion and a highly activated emotion such as surprise and fear were easily recognized under a relatively brief exposure to the stimuli.     

Children's interpretive understanding,moral judgments,and emotion attributions: Relations to social behaviour

The study investigated interpretive understanding, moral judgments, and emotion attributions in relation to social behaviour in a sample of 59 5‐year‐old, 123 7‐year‐old, and 130 9‐year‐old children. Interpretive understanding was assessed by two tasks measuring children's understanding of ambiguous situations. Moral judgments and emotion attributions were measured using two moral rule transgressions. Social behaviour was assessed using teachers' ratings of aggressive and prosocial behaviour. Aggressive behaviour was positively related to interpretive understanding and negatively related to moral reasoning. Prosocial behaviour was positively associated with attribution of fear. Moral judgments and emotion attributions were related, depending on age. Interpretive understanding was unrelated to moral judgments and emotion attributions. The findings are discussed in regard to the role of interpretive understanding and moral and affective knowledge in understanding children's social behaviour.     

Hemiregional facial asymmetry in expression of emotion: a concept needs to be verified.

In most of the neuropsychological studies the left-right hemifacial asymmetry during expression of emotion has been reported, although the present author proposed a concept of hemiregional asymmetry and reported that greater left hemifacial involvement was specific to the lower region of the face and greater right hemifacial was specific to the upper region of the face. It is speculated that this differential hemifacial involvement is a function of the right hemisphere, and it is explained in terms of neural innervation to facial muscles. This speculation needs to be verified further to arrive at a general conclusion.     

Improving the ability of elementary school-age children to identify emotion in facial expression

The authors evaluated an intervention program developed to remediate children's deficits in reading emotions in facial expressions. Thirty children from 2 elementary schools in suburban Atlanta participated in 6 30-min sessions over 4 weeks in which they were taught to discriminate, identify, express, and apply facial expression cues. The ability to read emotion in facial expressions significantly improved for the intervention group compared with the control group. Improvement on identifying facial expressions was associated with increased feelings of lower social anxiety and higher self-worth for girls. Boys' self-concept was negatively related to improvement. On the basis of the results, the authors suggested that structured interventions like the present one could be used to improve students' nonverbal processing abilities within public school settings, but with some cautions regarding the impact of new learning for boys.     

Visual-field bias in the judgment of facial expression of emotion

The left and right hemispheres of the brain are differentially related to the processing of emotions. Although there is little doubt that the right hemisphere is relatively superior for processing negative emotions, controversy exists over the hemispheric role in the processing of positive emotions. Eighty right-handed normal male participants were examined for visual-field (left-right) differences in the perception of facial expressions of emotion. Facial composite (RR, LL) and hemifacial (R, L) sets depicting emotion expressions of happiness and sadness were prepared. Pairs of such photographs were presented bilaterally for 150 ms, and participants were asked to select the photographs that looked more expressive. A left visual-field superiority (a right-hemisphere function) was found for sad facial emotion. A hemispheric advantage in the perception of happy expression was not found.     

Adult attachment and the perception of facial expression of emotion

Adult attachment orientation has been associated with specific patterns of emotion regulation. The present research examined the effects of attachment orientation on the perceptual processing of emotional stimuli. Experimental participants played computerized movies of faces that expressed happiness, sadness, and anger. Over the course of the movies, the facial expressions became neutral. Participants reported the frame at which the initial expression no longer appeared on the face. Under conditions of no distress (Study 1), fearfully attached individuals saw the offset of both happiness and anger earlier, and preoccupied and dismissive individuals later, than the securely attached individuals. Under conditions of distress (Study 2), insecurely attached individuals perceived the offset of negative facial expressions as occurring later than did the secure individuals, and fearfully attached individuals saw the offset later than either of the other insecure groups. The mechanisms underlying the effects are considered.     

Evolving judgments of terror risks: foresight, hindsight, and emotion: a reanalysis

The authors examined the evolution of cognitive and emotional responses to terror risks for a nationally representative sample of Americans between late 2001 and late 2002. Respondents' risk judgments changed in ways consistent with their reported personal experiences. However, they did not recognize these changes, producing hindsight bias in memories for their judgments. An intensive debiasing procedure failed to restore a foresightful perspective. A fear-inducing manipulation increased risk estimates, whereas an anger-inducing manipulation reduced them-both in predictions (as previously observed) and in memories and judgments of past risks. Thus, priming emotions shaped not only perceptions of an abstract future but also perceptions of a concrete past. These results suggest how psychological research can help to ensure an informed public.     

Emotional state and the detection of change in facial expression of emotion

A new method is presented for examining effects of emotion in the detection of change in facial expression of emotion. The method was used in one experiment, reported here. Participants who were induced to feel happiness, sadness, or neutral emotion, saw computerized 100‐frame movies in which the first frame always showed a face expressing a specific emotion (e.g. happiness). The facial expression gradually became neutral over the course of the movie. Participants played the movie, changing the facial expression, and indicated the frame at which the initial expression was no longer present on the face. Emotion congruent expressions were perceived to persist longer than were emotion incongruent expressions. The findings are consistent with previous findings documenting enhanced perceptual processing of emotion congruent information. The value of the current technique, and the types of everyday situations that it might model are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.