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.     

Facial Expressions and the Ability to Recognize Emotions from the Eyes or Mouth: A Comparison Between Children and Adults

The authors sought to contribute to the literature on the ability to recognize anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, and neutral emotions from facial information. They aimed to investigate if—regardless of age—this pattern changes. More specifically, the present study aimed to compare the difference between the performance of adults and 6- to 7-year-old children in detecting emotions from the whole face and a specific face region, namely the eyes and mouth. The findings seem to indicate that, for both groups, recognizing disgust, happiness, and surprise is facilitated when pictures represent the whole face. However, with regard to a specific region, a prevalence for children was not found between the eyes and mouth. Meanwhile, for adults, would seem to detect a greater role of the eye region. Finally, regarding the differences in the performance of emotions recognition, adults are better only in a few cases, whereas children are better in recognizing anger from the mouth.     

The effect of red color on perceived self‐attractiveness

Recent research showed that individuals are perceived as more attractive when presented with the color red. We seek to extend these findings by studying the effects of red color on individuals' perception of self‐attractiveness, rather than the attractiveness of others. Based on the color‐in‐context theory, we hypothesized that individuals would perceive themselves as more attractive under red chromatic conditions. In three experiments, participants were asked to wear a red or a blue shirt and rated their own attractiveness. As expected, participants in the red shirt condition indicated a higher level of self‐attractiveness than participants in the blue condition. Moreover, the results showed that the self‐perception red effect was mediated by the individuals' self‐perceived sexual receptivity and self‐perceived status.     

Lonely adolescents exhibit heightened sensitivity for facial cues of emotion

Contradicting evidence exists regarding the link between loneliness and sensitivity to facial cues of emotion, as loneliness has been related to better but also to worse performance on facial emotion recognition tasks. This study aims to contribute to this debate and extends previous work by (a) focusing on both accuracy and sensitivity to detecting positive and negative expressions, (b) controlling for depressive symptoms and social anxiety, and (c) using an advanced emotion recognition task with videos of neutral adolescent faces gradually morphing into full-intensity expressions. Participants were 170 adolescents (49% boys; M_age?=?13.65 years) from rural, low-income schools. Results showed that loneliness was associated with increased sensitivity to happy, sad, and fear faces. When controlling for depressive symptoms and social anxiety, loneliness remained significantly associated with sensitivity to sad and fear faces. Together, these results suggest that lonely adolescents are vigilant to negative facial cues of emotion.     

Identification of emotional expressiveness in facial photographs over 36 h of extended vigilance in healthy young men—a preliminary study

Changes in sleep patterns negatively influence some emotional responses, but their effects on facial expressiveness identification are unclear. To investigate these effects, 21 young, healthy, male volunteers of intermediate chronotype evaluated emotional expressiveness of faces depicting 6 basic emotions in 5 emotional gradients every 4?h over 36?h of continuous wakefulness. To measure attention and mood we used the Psychomotor Vigilance test and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Expanded, respectively. We found effects of emotional gradient for all types of emotions (100%?>?80%?>?60%?>?40%?>?20%) during all tested periods, with no indications of circadian effects. The only emotional rating to be affected was disgust, which was progressively blunted throughout the experiment. This effect did not parallel homeostatic and circadian changes in mood, alertness or attention. We conclude that identifying disgust on facial photographs is particularly sensitive to lack of sleep irrespective of sleep-induced changes in mood and attention in males.     

情绪调节困难对大学生手机成瘾的影响:相貌负面身体自我和社交回避与苦恼的链式中介作用

为考察相貌负面身体自我、社交回避与苦恼在情绪调节困难和手机成瘾关系中的链式中介效应,使用情绪调节困难量表、相貌负面身体自我量表、社交回避与苦恼量表和大学生手机成瘾倾向量表对734名大学生进行问卷调查。研究显示：（1）情绪调节困难会正向预测大学生手机成瘾;（2）相貌负面身体自我是情绪调节困难与大学生手机成瘾之间关系的中介变量;（3）社交回避与苦恼是相貌负面身体自我与大学生手机成瘾之间关系的中介变量;（4）社交回避与苦恼是情绪调节困难与大学生手机成瘾之间关系的中介变量。因此,相貌负面身体自我和社交回避与苦恼在情绪调节困难与大学生手机成瘾之间起链式中介作用,这些结果对于大学生手机成瘾的预防与干预具有重要的价值。     

“阳刚”还是“清秀”更具吸引力?——对男性面孔二态性不同偏好的元分析

生活中,有的喜欢"清秀"的男性面孔,而有的则更偏爱长得"阳刚"的面孔,已有大量的研究致力于解释这一分歧,但是得出的研究结果各不一致。本研究用元分析方法考察对男性面孔二态性的不同偏好,通过检索、搜集了23篇有效文献,56对数据满足了元分析标准(n=8408)。结果发现,漏斗图和BeggMazumdar秩相关检验、Egger’s检验结果显示不存在发表偏差;主效应检验发现对男性面孔二态性无明显偏好;调节效应检验表明,对男性面孔二态性偏好受面孔生成技术、生理周期的调节,但不受被试性别、关系背景和文化的调节。人们对男性面孔二态性的偏好,除了本身生物学特质(生理周期)外,还受到生成技术的影响。     

知觉适应对种族融合面孔的种族分类和知觉辨别的影响

面孔加工的种族效应(the other-race effects)指人们对面孔做个体辨别任务时辨别本族面孔的绩效优于辨别他族面孔的绩效, 而做种族分类任务时分类他族面孔的绩效优于分类本族面孔的绩效。本研究通过知觉适应操纵被试对种族两歧(高加索和亚洲)融合面孔的种族知觉, 进而比较被试在两种条件下对同一张融合面孔进行种族分类和知觉辨别的绩效的差异。结果发现, 知觉适应能使被试产生将两歧融合面孔知觉为与原始面孔所属种族相反种族的知觉偏向, 并且, 伴随着这种知觉偏向, 两歧融合面孔的加工出现了他族分类优势和本族辨别优势, 提示社会认知因素对面孔加工的种族效应有重要作用。