Facial expressions can inhibit the activation of gender stereotypes

ABSTRACT

Using faces as the priming stimuli, the present study explored the influence of facial expressions on the activation of gender stereotypes using a lexical decision paradigm. Experiment 1 explored the activation of gender stereotypes when the facial primes contained only gender information. The results showed that gender stereotypes were activated. In Experiment 2, the facial primes contained both gender category and expression information. The results indicated that gender stereotypes were not activated. Experiment 3 required the participants to make emotion, gender, or impression decisions concerning the facial primes before the lexical decision task. The results showed that gender stereotypes were not activated in emotion and impression decisions conditions, whereas stereotypes were activated in gender decisions condition. These finding suggest that facial expressions can inhibit automatic activation of gender stereotypes, unless the perceivers perform gender categorization processing to prime faces intentionally.     

Unilateral Facial Contractions Produce Mood Effects on Social Cognitive Judgements

Abstract

This study demonstrates that left and right unilateral facial contractions have similar effects on the expression of ethnic stereotypes as do negative and positive moods induced by more conventional means. Subjects who con tracted the left side of their face (negative mood inducer) were more likely to express negative stereotypes of ethnic groups than were subjects who contracted the right side of their face (positive mood inducer). This parallels previous findings obtained using two standard mood inductions: the Veltens mood induction procedure; and a musical mood induction procedure. Given that unilateral facial contractions manipulate mood without cognitive involvement, this mood induction may have advantages over previously used procedures, the effects of which are subject to cognitive mediation explanations. In addition, these results suggest that, at least for the expression of ethnic stereotypes, mood's influence on cognition does not depend on a cognitive component of mood induction.     

Stereotyping and action tendencies attribution as a function of available emotional information

In three experiments, we addressed the role of stereotypes in the attribution of action tendencies in intergroup contexts. We hypothesized that stereotyping would affect the attribution of action tendencies to out‐group members. Participants were presented with a facial expression displayed by either an in‐group or an out‐group member, followed by the presentation of a label describing an action tendency. They were then asked whether the label corresponded to the feeling state of the expresser. Study 1 tested whether stereotypes influence the attribution of action tendencies to out‐group members. Study 2 tested whether stereotype application varies as a function of the emotional information contained in the facial stimuli (i.e. neutral vs. emotional). Finally, Study 3 tested whether stereotype activation is indirectly determined by a difference in morphology between in‐group and out‐group members or directly determined by the expresser's group membership. As predicted, an increase in attribution of stereotypic action tendencies was observed for out‐group expressers. The application of stereotypes was specifically observed when facial expressions were neutral as compared to emotional and was independent of morphological differences between in‐group and out‐group faces. Such biases in interpreting out‐group members feeling states may play a crucial role in the maintenance of intergroup prejudice. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

He throws like a girl (but only when he's sad): emotion affects sex-decoding of biological motion displays

Gender stereotypes have been implicated in sex-typed perceptions of facial emotion. Such interpretations were recently called into question because facial cues of emotion are confounded with sexually dimorphic facial cues. Here we examine the role of visual cues and gender stereotypes in perceptions of biological motion displays, thus overcoming the morphological confounding inherent in facial displays. In four studies, participants’ judgments revealed gender stereotyping. Observers accurately perceived emotion from biological motion displays (Study 1), and this affected sex categorizations. Angry displays were overwhelmingly judged to be men; sad displays were judged to be women (Studies 2–4). Moreover, this pattern remained strong when stimuli were equated for velocity (Study 3). We argue that these results were obtained because perceivers applied gender stereotypes of emotion to infer sex category (Study 4). Implications for both vision sciences and social psychology are discussed.     

THE GENDER STEREOTYPING OF EMOTIONS

Three studies documented the gender stereotypes of emotions and the relationship between gender stereotypes and the interpretation of emotionally expressive behavior. Participants believed women experienced and expressed the majority of the 19 emotions studied (e.g., sadness, fear, sympathy) more often than men. Exceptions included anger and pride, which were thought to be experienced and expressed more often by men. In Study 2, participants interpreted photographs of adults'ambiguous anger/sadness facial expressions in a stereotype-consistent manner, such that women were rated as sadder and less angry than men. Even unambiguous anger poses by women were rated as a mixture of anger and sadness. Study 3 revealed that when expectant parents interpreted an infant's ambiguous anger/sadness expression presented on videotape only high-stereotyped men interpreted the expression in a stereotype-consistent manner. Discussion focuses on the role of gender stereotypes in adults'interpretations of emotional expressions and the implications for social relations and the socialization of emotion.     

Facial age cues and emotional expression interact asymmetrically: age cues moderate emotion categorisation

Facial attributes such as race, sex, and age can interact with emotional expressions; however, only a couple of studies have investigated the nature of the interaction between facial age cues and emotional expressions and these have produced inconsistent results. Additionally, these studies have not addressed the mechanism/s driving the influence of facial age cues on emotional expression or vice versa. In the current study, participants categorised young and older adult faces expressing happiness and anger (Experiment 1) or sadness (Experiment 2) by their age and their emotional expression. Age cues moderated categorisation of happiness vs. anger and sadness in the absence of an influence of emotional expression on age categorisation times. This asymmetrical interaction suggests that facial age cues are obligatorily processed prior to emotional expressions. Finding a categorisation advantage for happiness expressed on young faces relative to both anger and sadness which are negative in valence but different in their congruence with old age stereotypes or structural overlap with age cues suggests that the observed influence of facial age cues on emotion perception is due to the congruence between relatively positive evaluations of young faces and happy expressions.     

Republican Voters Prefer Candidates Who Have Conservative‐Looking Faces: New Evidence From Exit Polls

Research shows people share common political facial stereotypes: They associate faces with political ideologies. Moreover, given that many voters rely on party affiliation, political ideology, and appearances to select political candidates, we might expect that political facial stereotypes would sway voting preferences and, by extension, the share of votes going to each candidate in an election. And yet few studies have examined whether having a stereotypically conservative‐looking (or liberal‐looking) face predicts a candidate's vote shares. Using data from U.S. election exit polls, we show that the Republican voters within each state are more likely to vote for a candidate (even a Democrat) the more that person has a stereotypically Republican‐looking face. By contrast, the voting choices of the Democratic voters within each state are unrelated to political facial stereotypes. Moreover, we show that the relationship between political facial stereotypes and voting does not depend on state‐level ideology: Republican voters in both right‐leaning (“red”) and left‐leaning (“blue”) states are more likely to vote for candidates with conservative‐looking faces. These results have several important practical and theoretical implications concerning the nature and impact of political facial stereotypes, which we discuss.     

Race is gendered: how covarying phenotypes and stereotypes bias sex categorization

We argue that race and sex categories are psychologically and phenotypically confounded, affecting social categorizations and their efficiency. Sex categorization of faces was facilitated when the race category shared facial phenotypes or stereotypes with the correct sex category (e.g., Asian women and Black men) but was impaired when the race category shared incompatible phenotypes or stereotypes with the correct sex category (e.g., Asian men and Black women). These patterns were evident in the disambiguation of androgynous faces (Study 1) and the efficiency of judgments (Studies 1, 2, 4, and 5). These patterns emerged due to common facial phenotypes for the categories Black and men (Studies 3 and 5) and due to shared stereotypes among the categories Black and men and the categories Asian and women (Studies 4 and 5). These findings challenge the notion that social categories are perceived independent of one another and show, instead, that race is gendered.     

情绪对内隐刻板印象表达的调节

采用IAT范式探讨不同情绪对内隐刻板印象表达的调节作用：实验1通过音乐唤醒被试的不同弥散性情绪状态(悲伤vs.愉悦), 并操纵其即时观念(刻板一致vs.刻板冲突), 探讨二者对内隐性别刻板印象表达的影响。实验2通过视频诱发被试不同的指向性情绪(同情vs.厌恶), 研究其如何调节大学生对不同感染途径的艾滋病患者和病毒携带者的内隐刻板印象表达。在此基础上引入四重模型(Quad Model)分析技术, 进一步细化情绪的调节作用究竟发生在认知加工的自动加工过程还是控制加工过程, 以及不同情绪是通过哪些心理成分调节内隐刻板印象的表达。结果表明：(1)当即时观念与刻板印象内容一致时, 积极弥散性情绪促进内隐刻板印象的表达; 反之则会抑制其表达; (2)弥散性情绪通过调节认知加工的自动化加工过程, 进而调节内隐刻板印象的表达, 但未参与调节控制性加工过程; (3)积极效价的指向性情绪会抑制被试对艾滋病患者的内隐刻板印象表达, 消极效价的指向性情绪会促进其表达; (4)指向性情绪通过自动激活成分, 调节内隐刻板印象表达的自动化加工过程; 同时也通过辨识力成分, 参与调节内隐刻板印象表达的控制性加工过程。     

Brighten up: Smiles facilitate perceptual judgment of facial lightness

The metaphoric expression ‘bright smile’ may reflect the actual judgment of facial lightness under varying emotional expressions. The present research examined whether people in fact judge smiling faces as perceptually brighter than frowning faces. Four studies demonstrated that participants believed smiling faces were brighter compared to frowning faces in a binary choice task and in an absolute judgment task. The results suggest that emotional expressions (i.e., smiles and frowns) can bias judgments of facial brightness in ways consistent with the metaphor. Among other implications, such results suggest that stereotypes about darker-skinned individuals may be attenuated by smiles.     

Gender moderates the relationship between emotion and perceived gaze

Recent evidence shows that gender modulates the morphology of facial expressions and might thus alter the meaning of those expressions. Consequently, we hypothesized that gender would moderate the relationship between facial expressions and the perception of direct gaze. In Study 1, participants viewed male and female faces exhibiting joy, anger, fear, and neutral expressions displayed with direct and averted gazes. Perceptions of direct gaze were most likely for male faces expressing anger or joy and for female faces expressing joy. Study 2 established that these results were due to facial morphology and not to gender stereotypes. Thus, the morphology of male and female faces amplifies or constrains emotional signals and accordingly alters gaze perception.     

Face-ism as a Determinant of Interpersonal Perceptions: The Influence of Context on Facial Prominence Effects

The influence of facial prominence on traitratings made about videotaped men and women described aspursuing either stereotypically masculine or femininecareers was examined. Most participants (N = 168) were White women. Facial prominence failed toinfluence perceptions when gender or occupationstereotypes were strong. However, when those stereotypeswere weaker, facial prominence effects emerged such that individuals were rated as possessing moreof the trait when shown with high facial prominence. Forexample, men were rated higher on evaluative traits whenshown with high, as opposed to low, facial prominence. The results suggest that facialprominence differences observed in the media mayreinforce stereotypes.     

基于鼠标追踪技术的个体建构过程实时测量

个体建构研究探讨分类的低水平知觉过程及其机制, 涉及诸多自动化加工。基于手的运动可以实时地反映大脑内的信息加工过程这一原理, 鼠标追踪技术通过对被试移动电脑鼠标反应时鼠标运动轨迹的跟踪记录与分析, 对心理加工过程进行实时测量, 是实时测量心理加工过程的新技术。基于鼠标追踪技术的最新操作软件—— MouseTracker的个体建构过程实时测量研究发现, 社会类别和刻板印象遵循动态连续激活原则; 动态激活过程中, 基于面孔肤色的分类加工优先于基于面部轮廓的分类加工; 不同通道间的社会类别遵循动态整合激活原则; 个体建构过程是一个对他人的动态知觉系统, 该系统中社会类别、刻板印象、高水平认知状态以及对面孔、声音等的低水平加工之间可连续、动态地相互作用。     

Facial appearance, gender, and emotion expression

Western gender stereotypes describe women as affiliative and more likely to show happiness and men as dominant and more likely to show anger. The authors assessed the hypothesis that the gender-stereotypic effects on perceptions of anger and happiness are partially mediated by facial appearance markers of dominance and affiliation by equating men's and women's faces for these cues. In 2 studies, women were rated as more angry and men as more happy-a reversal of the stereotype. Ratings of sadness, however, were not systematically affected. It is posited that markers of affiliation and dominance, themselves confounded with gender, interact with the expressive cues for anger and happiness to produce emotional perceptions that have been viewed as simple gender stereotypes.     

Facing prejudice: implicit prejudice and the perception of facial threat

We propose that social attitudes, and in particular implicit prejudice, bias people's perceptions of the facial emotion displayed by others. To test this hypothesis, we employed a facial emotion change-detection task in which European American participants detected the offset (Study 1) or onset (Study 2) of facial anger in both Black and White targets. Higher implicit (but not explicit) prejudice was associated with a greater readiness to perceive anger in Black faces, but neither explicit nor implicit prejudice predicted anger perceptions regarding similar White faces. This pattern indicates that European Americans high in implicit racial prejudice are biased to perceive threatening affect in Black but not White faces, suggesting that the deleterious effects of stereotypes may take hold extremely early in social interaction.     

Ethnicity and Gender Stereotypes of Emotion

In three studies we investigated gender stereotypes of emotions among four ethnic groups in the U.S., using persons from these groups as informants about their own groups. European Americans’ reports of stereotypes were compared to those of African Americans (Study 1), Hispanic Americans (Study 2), and Asian Americans (Study 3). The examination of group differences was interpreted based on variations across ethnicities in norms concerning emotional expression and gender roles. Overall, gender stereotypes of emotion were evident among all ethnic groups studied, but European Americans’ gender stereotypes were the most gender differentiated. For example, European American stereotypes held that men express more pride than women do, but African Americans’ stereotypes of pride for men and women did not differ. Similarly, whereas among European Americans, women were stereotyped to express much more love than men do, the gender difference was smaller among Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. These different norms may pose challenges for inter-cultural interactions, and they point to the importance of considering both gender and ethnicity simultaneously in the study of emotions.     

Visual Political Communication: The Impact of Facial Cues from Social Constituencies to Personal Pocketbooks

Voters often use visual cues such as facial appearance when forming impressions of political candidates. Originally, psychological research on appearance‐based politics focused on understanding whether or not these facial cues were consequential for political judgments. As this sub‐field of study has expanded, the focus has shifted to understanding how and what facial cues voters utilize in their decision‐making. From this perspective, inferences about political candidates are characterized by a number of interrelated appearance‐based cues such as facial competence, physical attractiveness, and ingrained gender stereotypes that manifest in politicians' appearance. Importantly, this expanded research focus now includes a broader range of evaluative judgments that are influenced by candidates' facial appearance. Here, we provide an overview of the research on the use of appearance‐based cues in political decision‐making including initial information gathered about candidates, the evaluation of candidates' potential to be effective leaders, and the decision of whether or not to support candidates in an election.     

The independent effects of skin tone and facial features on Whites' affective reactions to Blacks

Research on skin tone and Afrocentric features provides evidence that people use phenotypes (visible physical characteristics) to make inferences about the degree to which stereotypes about the racial group apply to the individual (i.e., to make impressions of others). However, skin tone and Afrocentric features have been confounded in prior research on this topic. The present study examines whether facial features (lip thickness, nose width) have effects on Whites' affective reactions to Black targets, above and beyond the well-documented skin tone effect by experimentally crossing variation in facial features and skin tone. The results showed that both skin tone and facial features independently affected how negatively, as opposed to positively, Whites felt toward Blacks using both implicit and explicit measures. The findings that Whites reacted more negatively toward Blacks with darker skin tone and more prototypical facial features than toward Blacks with lighter skin tone and less prototypical facial features on the explicit measure may indicate that Whites are unaware of the negative effects that Blacks' phenotypes can have on their racial attitudes. The present study demonstrated that subtle facial features, in addition to salient skin tone, also play an important role when predicting Whites' feelings about Blacks. One implication is that it is important to raise people's awareness about the effects that Blacks' phenotypes can have on their attitudes.     

Category and stereotype activation revisited

In Study 1 (N= 230), we found that the participants' explicit prejudice was not related to their knowledge of cultural stereotypes of immigrants in Sweden, and that they associated the social category immigrants with the same national/ethnic categories. In Study 2 (N= 88), employing the category and stereotype words obtained in Study 1 as primes, we examined whether participants with varying degrees of explicit prejudice differed in their automatic stereotyping and implicit prejudice when primed with category or stereotypical words. In accord with our hypothesis, and contrary to previous findings, the results showed that people's explicit prejudice did not affect their automatic stereotyping and implicit prejudice, neither in the category nor stereotype priming condition. Study 3 (N= 62), employing category priming using facial photographs of Swedes and immigrants as primes, showed that participants' implicit prejudice was not moderated by their explicit prejudice. The outcome is discussed in relation to the distinction between category and stereotype priming and in terms of the associative strength between a social category and its related stereotypes.     

区分度在面部表情与面孔身份识别交互中的作用

已有研究表明,身份对面部表情识别的影响较常见,但表情对面孔身份识别的影响却很罕见。只有个别研究发现了表情对熟悉面孔身份识别的影响。最近有研究使用非常相似的模特面孔图片为实验材料,也发现了表情对身份识别的影响,并提出在以往研究中表情不影响身份识别是因为身份的区分度高于表情的区分度。本研究置疑表情区分度低于身份区分度的必然性,认为过去的研究使用静态表情图片,使得表情自然具有的强度变化线索缺失,才导致表情的区分度相对较低。本研究假设,当表情的强度变化线索得以体现时,表情的区分度就会提高,此时表情识别可能就不会受身份的影响。实验结果支持该假设,证明表情与身份的区分度水平是决定二者识别交互模式的重要因素。表情身份识别之间的相互影响并不能完全证明这两者之间的独立加工关系。此外,研究结果也提示在一定条件下可以部分分离表情与身份信息