The Influence of Group Membership on Emotion Perception
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Afdeling Psychologie
Bachelorthese Sociale Psychologie
Auteur : P. Platschorre
Collegekaartnummer : 6055583
Begeleider : P. Kommattam
Datum : 22-06-2014
Aantal woorden : 5668 Aantal woorden abstract : 164
Abstract
This review examines the influence of group membership on emotion perception. Groups are shown to have a wide array of effects on emotion perception. One of the best known effects is the in-group advantage, which is the enhanced recognition of facial emotion
expressions of in-group members over out-group members. In this paper the relationship between group membership and emotion perception is further analyzed. We will examine the role of characteristics of the expresser of the emotion, stereotypes, and social categorization in
the relationship between group membership and emotion perception. Gender, ethnicity, and age of the expresser are shown to influence emotion perception in a way that is explained by differences in facial appearance. Stereotypes are shown influence emotion perception in line with the associated expectations regarding emotion expression. Also the process of social categorization itself seems to play a complex role together with the behavioural aspects of emotion perception in the form of approach-avoidance responses. The results are discussed in
Contents
The Influence of Group Membership on Emotion Perception .4 The Influence of Characteristics of the Expresser on Emotion Perception .7
The Influence of Stereotypes on Emotion Perception .10
The Role of Social Categorization in the Influence of Groups on Emotion Perception .12
Discussion .14
The Influence of Group Membership on Emotion Perception
Emotion perception
Emotions are an important part of human life and their expressions are fundamental to human social behaviour in a way that they shape our social interaction and relations
(Niedenthal et al. 2006). In literature on emotion a distinction is made between primary and secondary emotions. Primary emotions are the more basic emotions that can also be found in animals, such as anger, fear, happiness and sadness. Secondary emotions on the other hand are emotions that are linked to humanity, such as tenderness, hope, guilt and shame
(Demoulin, Leyens, Paladino, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, and Dovidio, 2004.). Emotions are also considered to be more or less universal. The universality of emotion is posed by Ekman (1972) who found six basic emotions within facial expression which are recognized above chance level across cultures (Ekman, 1994), indicating that everyone has an emotional repertoire hardwired from birth. Emotions are a social phenomenon, which means that it is fundamental to social behaviour. As Ekman did, researchers of emotion often use facial expressions as a measure of emotion; therefore facial expressions of emotion will be the aspect I will focus on in this paper.
Emotional facial expressions have two functions: they are symptoms of an underlying
state and they are communicative signals relevant to social motives (Darwin, 1872;
Horstmann, 2003; Hess, Adams Jr, & Kleck, 2009). The crying face of a woman for example can be perceived in the light of these two functions of emotional facial expressions. When seeing the crying face as a symptom of an underlying state one might think that the woman is not feeling good, and one might, when empathy is present, even feel bad oneself. When seeing the crying face of the woman as a communicative signal relevant to social motives however, one might think that the woman is indicating that she needs help. In communicating with others, expression of one’s own emotions and recognition of emotions of others is a necessity to interact in an appropriate way. Whether the communicative signal of the emotion expression does what it has to do is dependent on the way the interaction partner perceives the expression. While expressing one’s emotions can already be quite a complicated matter, the perception of emotions of others might be even more difficult. Facially expressed emotions are not easily interpreted. The different characteristics of the expresser, like gender and ethnicity, influence the perception of facial expressions of emotion. More specifically the evaluation of an expressed emotion is predicted by the perceived likelihood that a member of a given social group would express a certain emotion (Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000). Being a
social phenomenon, emotions are influenced by groups. Watching a soccer game is a different emotional experience while sitting in a stadium with other people than while sitting alone at home. The emotional experience is also completely different when someone is watching a soccer game in which their home country is playing than when two non-related countries are playing against each other. And as one can imagine, the same emotion expressed by someone of the supported team or an opponent will be perceived quite differently. Groups seem to have an influence on emotion perception.
Groups
Groups are, as emotions, an important part of human life and every person has the need to belong to a certain social group (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Groups are social categories of which the members share certain characteristics (Stangor, 2004). Groups exist in many different forms and can have a wide array of effects on emotions. The effect of groups on emotion perception becomes salient in different phenomena. One example is out-group
homogeneity. Out-group homogeneity is the tendency for people to perceive out-group
members as more similar to each other than in-group members (Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992). This might lead to a more superficial perception of facial expressions of emotion from out-group members. On contrast there are also cases in which this effect reverses, creating
in-group homogeneity. This is only the case when the in-in-group is relative small in comparison to
the out-group, creating a sense of unity and hence the perception of being a more similar group than the out-group (Doosje, Ellemers, & Spears, 1995). Closely linked to out-group homogeneity is ethnocentrism, which is the tendency to perceive the world solely from the perspective of one’s own ethnic group or culture (Jahoda, 2002). This leads to judgments of other ethnic and cultural groups based on norms and standards of one’s own group. These judgments can be distorted, for norms and standards can be quite different between cultures. Such a distorted judgment often exists in the form of a prejudice, which is an unjustifiable negative attitude toward out-group members (Stangor, 2004).
Both out-group homogeneity and ethnocentrism are at work in the cross-race effect, which is the tendency to perceive faces of a different race as alike, and to more easily recognize faces of one’s own race. Also, motivation to decode emotional facial expressions decreases with the realization that the expresser is of a different race (Hess, Senecal, &
Kirouac, 1996). The effect of group membership on emotion perception becomes even clearer in the in-group advantage, where this effect of enhanced facial recognition is found
just race. It has been shown to apply to different social categories such as race, sex, and age (Young & Hugenberg, 2010). The in-group advantage is a robust finding in the field emotion perception. The in-group advantage is a frequently observed effect where facial emotion expressions of in-group members are better recognized than facial emotion expressions of out-group members. In a meta-analysis Elfenbein & Ambady (2002) showed a universal in-group advantage in emotion recognition. Facial expressions of emotion were recognized better for in-group members than for out-group members, regardless of ethnicity. They showed that increased contact with ethnic out-groups leads to an increase in emotion
recognition, so groups containing different ethnicities showed the same in-group advantage as groups containing only one ethnicity. They even found some out-group advantages in emotion recognition for the minority groups within a nation; small groups were better recognizing facial expressions of emotion from the bigger out-groups than of their own small in-group. The different group sizes fulfil the conditions of in-group homogeneity as discussed above, explaining in part the reversed effect. This shows the effect can go both ways in certain situations. They did not check if the people in the minority group categorized themselves as in-group among each other though. In order for any effects of groups on emotion perception to take place there needs to be some form of social identification from the perceiver. The previously mentioned ethnocentrism for example can only take place when group members care for their group and identify with the in-group members (Demoulin, Leyens, Paladino, Rodriguez, Rodrigues, & Dovidio 2004). In-group members are very important for the well-being of every individual. Many well known theories are based on group membership and the corresponding in- and out-groups. For example the theories of social comparison, realistic group conflict, and social identity show how in- and out-group members are an important resource for the enhancement of subjective well-being (Correll & Park, 2005). The social identity theory states that the need to belong to a certain social group necessarily leads to in- and hence out-groups. Because of the importance of this social identity people continuously compare their in-group in a favourable manner with out-groups, this way their social identity remains positive. This often happens in a subjective manner, based on different stereotypes about the out-group (Stangor, 2004). Once a social identity is in place, the distinction between in- and out-group is made by social categorization, which is defined as “the process of
thinking about someone as a member of a meaningful social group” by Stangor (2004). Groups seem to have a wide array of effects on emotion perception. The main question this paper addresses is what the influence of group membership on emotion perception looks like. Three different explanations posed in recent literature will be discussed, all briefly
mentioned above. First there is the influence of the characteristics of the expresser of the emotion on the emotion perception. Group members share certain characteristics which might in part explain the influence of group membership on the perception of facial emotion
expressions. Groups sharing these characteristics might have different ‘dialects’ of emotion expression and perception. This view is known as the dialect theory (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002). The dialect theory states that in the same way a language differs between social groups and regions, so might emotion expression and perception. Due to subtle differences in the way emotions are expressed and understood within different cultures and groups, people might be able to recognize facial expressions better within their own (sub-)culture. Hence, the in-group advantage of emotion recognition might be partly explained due to the sharing of certain characteristics between group members, such as age or ethnicity. In the first paragraph the influence of gender, ethnicity and age of the expresser on the perception of facial emotion expressions will be examined.
Second there is the influence of stereotypes on the emotion perception. Stereotypes make people judge out-group members in terms of their social categories instead of their individual characteristics (Stangor, 2004). In the second paragraph the role of stereotypes in emotion perception will be examined.
Third there is the influence of social categorization itself on emotion perception. As stated before, a general in-group advantage was found in emotion perception independent of race. This implicates that besides the characteristic that causes the difference in emotion perception, mere social categorization into in-group should be enough to find an effect on emotion perception. In the third paragraph the role of social categorization in the influence of groups on emotion perception will be examined.
The Influence of Characteristics of the Expresser on Emotion Perception
As mentioned earlier Hess et al. (2000) found an influence of gender on emotion perception. In their research on the influence of emotion displays, gender, and ethnicity on judgements of dominance and affiliation they examined two of the basic emotions; anger and happiness. The same facial anger expression was rated as more intense when the expresser was a male than when the expresser was a female. Contrary, the same facial happinessexpression was rated as more intense when the expresser was female than when the expresser was male. They conclude that these differences in emotion perception might not be solely due to the gender of the expresser but that the effect of gender of the expresser on emotion
perception might be partly mediated by different facial cues of dominance and affiliation. Facial cues of dominance are for example a square jaw and heavy eyebrows. Facial cues of affiliation are for example a round face and large eyes. Because male faces usually contain more dominant features and female faces usually contain more affiliation-related features, a dominant facial emotion expression such as anger will be rated as more intense when
expressed by a male, while an affiliative facial emotion expression such as happiness will be rated as more intense when expressed by a female.
What can be concluded is that the perception of facial emotion expressions is influenced by gender related facial characteristics. This implicates that the characteristics of the expresser themselves, in this case gender and the associated facial features, influence the emotion perception.
In a research similar to that of Hess et al. (2000), on the influence of facial appearance and gender on perception of facial emotion expressions, Hess et al. (2004) controlled for facial cues of dominance and affiliation by presenting pictures of men and women with the same morphological facial features. Basically, they presented men and women with men’s facial features and men and women with women’s facial features. The effect previously found by Hess et al. (2000) disappeared or even reversed when controlled for morphological cues of dominance and affiliation. That is, when controlled for facial cues of dominance and
affiliation, the same facial anger expression was rated as more intense when the expresser was a female than when the expresser was a male. Contrary, when controlled for facial cues of dominance and affiliation, the same facial happiness expression was rated as more intense when the expresser was male than when the expresser was female. They conclude that women are generally perceived to be more angry than men, which is compensated by their less
dominant and more affiliative facial features.
These two researches show that the different characteristics of the expresser of an emotion play a different role in the effect the characteristics of the expresser have on emotion perception. Facial features of dominance and affiliation influence the intensity of the
perceived facial emotion expression. Emotional expressions associated with dominance are perceived as more intense when expressed by a face with dominant features than when
expressed by a face with affiliative features. Emotional expressions associated with affiliation are perceived as more intense when expressed by a face with affiliative features than when expressed by a face with dominant features. Gender seemed to be of smaller influence than facial features, given the fact that the effect reversed when controlling for facial features. ,
When controlled for the facial features it is women however who are perceived to be more angry than men, and men who are perceived to be more happy than women.
Besides gender, we saw in the introduction that ethnicity is another factor that is thought to have an influence on emotion perception. In a research on cross-cultural emotion
recognition Beaupré & Hess (2005) examined perceivers of three different ethnicities: French-Canadian, Chinese and African. They all got to judge facial emotion expressions in the form of pictures in which the expresser could be one of the same three ethnicities. They found that facial expressions of sadness were more accurately recognized when the expresser was Chinese than when the expresser was French-Canadian or African. Facial expressions of fear were more accurately recognized when the expresser was African than when the expresser was French-Canadian or Chinese. They argue that the found difference is explained by different facial features of the expresser. The contrast between the dark skin color of Africans and the white part of the eye that is shown when expressing fear might increase the perceived salience of fear in the expresser. This way one can also argue that the low stance of the upper eyelid of Chinese people might increase the perceived salience of sadness in expresser.
This research shows that different cultural characteristics of the expresser of an emotion influences emotion perception. This effect can arguably be explained by facial features of a culture, which influence the accuracy of the emotion perception.
Another characteristic that has to be dealt with regularly in daily life is age. People often speak of a generation gap when different age-groups fail to understand each other. An
emotion expression from someone of a different generation might be perceiver differently than the same emotion expression from someone of ones own generation. Riediger et al. (2011) researched the influence of age of the expresser on the perception of a facial
expression of emotion. They let young (20-31 years old), middle-aged (44-55 years old) and older (70-81 years old) participants rate young, middle-aged and old facial expressers of emotions on six different emotion scales: neutrality, happiness, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness. They found that recognition of facial expressions of emotions decreased as age of the expresser increased. The older the expresser, the worse the recognition became. The effect was bigger in young perceivers than in old perceivers. They argue that age related changes in facial features and skin textures of the expresser make emotional expressions of older as compared to young expressers more difficult to recognize.
This research shows that age of the expresser of an emotion influences emotion perception. This effect can arguably be explained by facial features accompanying age differences, which influence the accuracy of the emotion perception.
What became clear in this paragraph is that the characteristics of the expresser of an emotion influence the way the emotion is perceived. Differences in gender, culture, and age itself did not seem to have an effect on the perception of facial emotion expressions, the found effects seemed to be explained by differences in facial appearance between the expressers.
The Influence of Stereotypes on Emotion Perception
In order for our social identity to remain positive people continuously compare their in-group in a favourable manner with out-in-groups. In order to be able to able to keep these
comparisons favourable for oneself the comparison is often based on certain stereotypes about the out-group (Stangor, 2004). Barrett & Bliss-Moreau (2009) examined the influence of the stereotype belief that women are more emotional than men on emotion perception in men and women. Participants were shown 32 emotion expressing faces with an accompanying
sentence explaining why the person in the picture shows the emotion, which they were told to remember. After that they were shown the facial expressions without the sentences and ask to judge in a split second if the person in the picture was an ‘emotional’ person, or was just having a bad day. Regardless of gender of the perceiver, participants were more likely to attribute a woman’s emotional behaviour to her ‘emotional nature’, whereas men’s behaviour was perceived to be caused by situational factors. In a second experiment they trace the in the first experiment found effects back to the baby-face overgeneralization effect. This is the effect that people with faces showing resemblance with the face of a baby are also thought be psychologically similar to a baby. The resemblance with the face of a baby can be found in different feminine facial features such as a round face, big eyes, or a small chin. In this second experiment they found that the ‘emotional’ attribution was bigger for emotion expression by feminine faces than masculine faces.
This research shows that the stereotype belief that women are overly emotional
compared with men holds up even when given information on why someone shows a certain facial emotion expression. People tend to attribute the emotion to the overly emotional personality of a woman, and to the situation a man is in. Although this research tells us how the expresser is perceived differently due to a stereotype belief, it fails to show if the facial emotion expression itself is perceived differently as a result of the stereotype belief.
Hess et al. (2010) researched the stereotype about men and women’s emotionality in more detail. Creating a fictional alien society they were able to examine the influence of social roles on emotion perception apart from gender. They created a gender neutral caregiver,
while men and women fulfilled the same social roles. They found an effect of facial
dominance of the expresser on expected emotion expression. Individuals with dominant facial features were expected to show more anger, disgust, and contempt and less happiness, fear, sadness, and surprise. Caregivers on the other hand were expected to show less anger, contempt, and disgust as well as more fear, sadness, and surprise, regardless of facial
appearance. They found no gender effect on perceived emotionality. Where they do show that the effect of stereotypes on emotion perception is not gender specific, they do not measure actual emotion perception, instead they only measure expected emotion expressions.
While the existence of stereotypes on the emotional differences between men and women might seem clear for most people, there are also effects of less obvious racial stereotypes on the perception of facial emotion expressions. In a research on the role of implicit prejudice in emotion perception Hutchings & Haddock (2008) had participants categorize and interpret racially ambiguous facial expressions on race and intensity of the expressed emotion. They demonstrated that individuals are more likely to categorize a racially ambiguous angry face as Black when they are high in implicit prejudice than when they are low in implicit prejudice. The same facial emotion expression was also perceived as more intense when categorized as Black than when categorized as White. This illustrates that there is not only an effect of stereotypes on racial categorization, but also on the perceived intensity of the shown emotion.
Bijlstra et al. (2010) found that stereotypically associated facial emotion expressions were recognized faster than non-associated facial emotion expressions. They conducted two experiments, showing the effect for racial stereotypes as well as gender stereotypes.
Recognition of the facial expression of anger was facilitated when expressed by a male Moroccan Dutch face, in line with the Moroccan Dutch stereotype. Also, when compared with positive emotions, negative emotions were recognized quicker when expressed by men than when expressed by women. When only negative emotions were shown, recognition of a facial expression of anger was facilitated when expressed by men, while recognition of a facial expression of sadness was facilitated when expressed by women. Concluded can be that stereotype associations, as triggered by racial or gender unambiguous faces, influence the perception of emotional expressions in a way that facilitates the recognition of the associated emotions.
Inzlicht et al. (2008) showed the effects of stereotypes taking a different approach. They researched the influence of expected prejudice on the perception of facial emotion
concern of being target of gender-based stereotyping. In the experiment participants got to see a facial emotion expression changing from contempt to happy, and had to press a button when the face shifted from its original emotion. Female participants high in concern of gender-based stereotyping perceived the contempt to last longer on male faces than female
participants low in concern of gender-based stereotyping. They argue that since women are more likely to experience stigmatization than men this is a logical result. They conclude that individuals holding prejudice expectations are sensitive to out-group rejection, which
manifests itself in the perceptual evaluation of emotion expressions of out-group members, causing people to perceive a facial emotion expression as relatively negative.
The Role of Social Categorization in the Influence of Groups on Emotion
Perception
As stated in the introduction social identification is a process fundamental to human well-being (Stangor, 2004). Social identification leads to favourable social comparison to keep ones social identity positive. In order for a comparison to be favourable similar emotion expression from different expressers should be perceived differently. This social comparison necessarily involves social categorization, of which the influence on emotion perception will be examined in this paragraph.
In their research on the influence of social categorization on emotion perception Young & Hugenberg (2010) state that when the expresser of an emotion is perceived as an in-group member, the perceiver will be more motivated to process the expressed emotions than when the expresser is perceived as an out-group member. They argue that because of this extra motivation brought in by in-group categorization people use a superior processing style to recognize facial expressions of in-group members. In four experiments they confirm their hypotheses showing that mere social categorization into in-group creates an advantage in identifying facial emotion expressions. Social categorization into in- and out-groups seemed to result in different processing modes, using more configural form of processing in case of in-group categorization, causing the advantage. A configural processing style is characterized by processing specifically the spatial relations between parts of the face, in contrast to more general, superficial processing where the face is seen as one object. It has been shown to be a key to better face processing and recognition (Maurer, Le Grand, & Mondloch, 2002).
The research of Young & Hugenberg (2010) shows that social categorization alone is enough to create an in-group advantage in emotion recognition. The difference in emotion
perception they found is caused by different ways of processing facial emotion expressions. The different ways of processing facial emotion expressions are in turn caused by different motivation to process in- and out-group faces. From this motivational perspective it makes sense that social categorization into in- or out-group elicits different behavioural responses to a facial emotion expression. Increased motivation to process the facial emotion expression of an in-group member might go hand in hand with approach related behaviour, while decreased motivation to process the facial emotion expression of an out-group member might induce avoidance related behaviour.
Paladino & Castelli (2008) explored social categorization from the starting point that a social representation involves a motor component whenever there is face-to-face interaction included in the examined experience. They found that different behavioural tendencies are activated in intergroup perception for in- and out-group members. These different tendencies were present in intergroup contexts of ethnicity, nationality, age, and political orientation. They even showed to hold up in a minimal group paradigm, that is, a small group without any history of interaction between group members, showing that prior experience is not a
requirement for in-group categorization and automatic activation of motor behaviour. With motor actions such as approach and avoidance behaviour being part of the representation of social groups, they might be able to provide some information about the differences in the perception of facial emotion expressions of different groups. Researching these thoughts Paulus & Wentura (2013) found that positive in-group emotions and negative out-group emotions lead to more approach related behaviour than negative in-group emotions and positive out-group emotions. Their experiment clearly shows that the behavioural component of the emotion perception is influenced by the social categorization into in- and out-group. Also, it shows that approach and avoidance reactions can not be paired with in- and out-group classification respectively. In fact in- and out-group classification can induce as well approach as avoidance behaviour.
In an experiment of Seidel et al. (2010) it becomes clear that the part of the expressed emotion that reflects the underlying state triggers different approach-avoidance behaviour than the social message of the emotion, indicating that the same emotion is perceived in two different ways. They found that the automatic evaluation of the emotion sadness differed from the conscious processing of the emotion. The conscious preference to a sad emotional face was avoiding, the automatic evaluation however was found to be one of approach. They argue that because a sad person is believed to communicate a request for help, the automatic
a cue of distress which, in the case of enhanced cognitive processing, is evaluated negatively and hence will lead to a reaction of avoidance. These two components of emotion perception, the communicative signals relevant to social motives and the symptoms of an underlying state, closely resemble the two functions of emotion briefly mentioned in the introduction. They seem to be processed separately and the way of processing seems to differ in level of consciousness. In- and out-group membership of the expresser was not examined in the research by Seidel et al. (2010), so the role of social categorization remains unclear in this research. Combining the results of the researches described above an interesting conclusion arise though. Positive in-group emotions and negative out-group emotions lead to more approach related behaviour than negative in-group emotions and positive out-group emotions (Paulus & Wentura, 2013). On the other hand the same facial emotion expression leads to different approach-avoidance reactions when consciously perceived than when automatically evaluated (Seidel, Habel, Kirschner, Gur, & Derntl, 2010).
Discussion
In this paper the influence of group membership on emotion perception was examined. More specifically the influence of characteristics of the expresser on emotion perception was examined in the first paragraph, in the second paragraph the influence of stereotypes on emotion perception was researched, and in the third paragraph the role of social categorization in emotion perception was discussed.
In the first paragraph it became clear that the perception of facial emotion expressions is influenced by different characteristics of the expresser. The gender of the expresser and the associated facial features, play a role in the perception of emotional facial expressions (Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000). The same facial anger expression was rated as more intense when the expresser was a male than when the expresser was a female, and the same facial happiness expression was rated as more intense when the expresser was female than when the expresser was male. When controlled for facial features of dominance and affiliation however, the same facial anger expression was rated as more intense when the expresser was a female than when the expresser was a male, and the same facial expression of happiness was rated as more intense when the expresser was male than when the expresser was female (Hess, Adams, & Kleck, 2004). Besides gender and the associated facial features, also cultural characteristics of the expresser of an emotion appeared to be of influence on the perception of facially
expresser was African than when the expresser was French-Canadian or Chinese (Beaupré & Hess, 2005). Just as Hess et al. (2004) did, Beaupré & Hess (2005) argue that the found differences in emotion perception are explained by different facial features of the expresser. Next to gender and ethnicity Riediger et al. (2011) showed that also age of the expresser of an emotion influences emotion perception. Again the effect is explained by facial features.
In de discussed literature, the influence of gender, ethnicity and age on the perception of facial emotion expressions can all be traced back to differences in facial features. This does not completely confirm the dialect theory discussed in the introduction. The dialect theory states that the differences in the way emotions are expressed and perceived within different cultures and groups is responsible for differences in recognition of facial expressions, while the discussed researches implicate that individual differences in facial appearance of the expressers are responsible for the differences in facial emotion perception.
In the second paragraph it became clear that stereotypes have a wide array of effect on emotion perception. Stereotype belief that women are overly emotional compared with men holds up even when given information on why someone shows a certain facial emotion expression. People tend to attribute the emotion to the overly emotional personality of a woman, and to the situation a man is in (Barrett & Bliss-Moreau, 2009). This might be caused by the social roles men and women are associated with; the effect of stereotypes on emotion perception was found not to be gender specific, although this was only shown for expected emotion expression and not for actual emotion perception (Hess, Thibault, Adams, & Kleck, 2010). Just as for the characteristics of the expresser in the first paragraph ethnicity also showed to be of an influence. Individuals appeared to be more likely to categorize a racially ambiguous angry face as Black when they are high in implicit prejudice than when they are low in implicit prejudice. On top of that facial emotion expression was also perceived as more intense when categorized as Black than when categorized as White (Hutchings & Haddock, 2008). The research of Bijlstra et al. (2010) confirmed that stereotype associations, as triggered by racial or gender unambiguous faces, influence the perception of emotional expressions. They conclude that stereotype associations facilitate recognition of the associated emotion. The effect of stereotypes on emotion perception reaches even further. Individuals holding prejudice expectations are shown to be sensitive to out-group rejection, which manifests itself in the perceptual evaluation of emotion expressions of out-group members, causing people to perceive a facial emotion expression as relatively negative (Inzlicht, Kaiser, & Major, 2008).
In the third paragraph it became clear that social categorization alone is enough to create an in-group advantage in emotion recognition. The difference in emotion perception is caused by a different way of processing facial emotion expressions which is in turn caused by
different motivation to process in- and out-group faces (Young & Hugenberg, 2010). Also, social categorization induces different behavioural responses as a part of emotion perception. Positive in-group emotions and negative out-group emotions lead to more approach related behaviour than negative in-group emotions and positive out-group emotions. On the other hand the same facial emotion expression leads to different approach-avoidance reactions when consciously perceived than when automatically evaluated (Paladino & Castelli, 2008; Paulus & Wentura, 2013; Seidel, Habel, Kirschner, Gur, & Derntl, 2010).
Overall there seem to be three aspects where the influence of group membership on emotion perception becomes salient.
First, the facial characteristics of the expresser seem to determine the perception of the expressed emotion in such a way that the difference between emotion perception and emotion expression remains vague. Do the different facial features mean that an emotion is expressed differently, or do the different facial features mean that the same emotion is perceived differently? It seems logical that different facial characteristics mean there is a different emotion expression. When someone has big, heavy eyebrows that person is showing naturally more anger than someone with small eyebrows. So the characteristics of the expresser
themselves seem not to influence the emotion perception, but the emotion expression. This effect might be an experimental artefact though. When taking into account different factors such as posture, vocal expression, and situational factors they might undo the effect of facial features found in the described experiment. Second, it became clear that different facial characteristics induce different stereotypes which do seem to influence the actual emotion perception in a way that is in line with the expectations regarding emotion expression associated with the stereotype. Third it became clear that the process social categorization itself influences emotion perception. It is shown to induce different behavioural responses as part of emotion perception in the form of approach-avoidance patterns. The relationship between social categorization and approach-avoidance behaviour however remains a bit vague and there might be more to it than described here. The behavioural pattern of approach-avoidance as component of emotion perception has been found to correlate with measures of prejudice (Neumann et al., 2004; Wyer, 2010), indicating that the underlying relationship is even more complex.
What can be concluded on basis of the discussed literature is that the perceiver itself plays a large role in emotion perception, indicating that we should think carefully about the way we categorize people.
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Research Proposal:
The Role of Social Categorization and Behavioral Tendencies in Emotion
Perception
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Afdeling Psychologie
Bachelorthese: Research proposal
Auteur : P. Platschorre Collegekaartnummer : 6055583 Begeleider : P. Kommattam
Datum : 22-06-2014
The Role of Social Categorization and Behavioral Tendencies in Emotion
Perception
Social identification is a process fundamental to human well-being (Stangor, 2004). Social identification leads to favourable social comparison to keep ones social identity
positive. In order for a comparison to be favourable similar emotion expression from different expressers should be perceived differently leading to different forms of social categorization. Paladino & Castelli (2008) explored social categorization from the starting point that a social representation involves a motor component whenever there is face-to-face interaction
included in the examined experience. They showed that different behavioural tendencies are activated in intergroup perception for in- and out-group members. These different tendencies were present in intergroup contexts of ethnicity, nationality, age, and political orientation. They even showed to hold up in a minimal group paradigm, that is, a small group without any history of interaction between group members, showing that prior experience is not a
requirement for in-group categorization and automatic activation of motor behaviour. With motor actions such as approach and avoidance behaviour being part of the representation of social groups, they might be able to provide some information about the differences in the perception of facial emotion expressions of different groups.
Paulus & Wentura (2013) found that positive in-group emotions and negative out-group emotions lead to more approach related behaviour than negative in-group emotions and positive out-group emotions. Social categorization into in- and out-group is hence shown to influence the behavioural component of emotion perception. Emotional facial expressions have two functions: they are symptoms of an underlying state and they are communicative
signals relevant to social motives (Darwin, 1872; Horstmann, 2003; Hess, Adams Jr, &
Kleck, 2009). Building on this knowledge Seidel et al. (2010) showed that the part of the expressed emotion that reflects the underlying state triggered different approach-avoidance behaviour than the social message of the emotion. They found that the automatic evaluation of the emotion sadness differed from the conscious processing of the emotion. The conscious preference to a sad emotional face was avoiding, the automatic evaluation however was found to be one of approach. They argue that because a sad person is believed to communicate a request for help, the automatic reaction is to approach the expresser of the sadness. On the other hand, they argue, sadness is a cue of distress which, in the case of enhanced cognitive processing, is evaluated negatively and hence will lead to a reaction of avoidance. These two components of emotion perception, the communicative signals relevant to social motives and
the symptoms of an underlying state, closely resemble the two functions of emotion
mentioned above. They seem to be processed separately and the way of processing seems to differ in level of consciousness. In- and out-group membership of the expresser was not examined in the research by Seidel et al. (2010) though, so the role of social categorization remains unclear in this research. Combining the results of the two researches described above some interesting hypothesis arise. What becomes clear is that approach and avoidance
reactions can not be paired with in- and out-group classification respectively. In fact it became clear that in- and out-group classification can induce as well approach as avoidance
behaviour.
Thus where a behavioural response seems to be a part of the mental representation of a person or group just as an affect or a personality trait is, it became clear that emotion
perception triggered approach and avoidance reactions (Paladino & Castelli, 2008; Seidel et al., 2010). The conflicting automatic and conscious responses seemed to have something to do with the two functions of emotion as well as the classification of the expresser as in- or out-group. Given the above explained importance of in-group members, classifying the expresser as an in-group member should induce different approach-avoidance reactions than classifying the expresser an out-group member when perceiving emotions.
In this experiment the role of social categorization and behavioural tendencies in emotion perception will be researched in the light of the above discussed results. Conscious reactions as part of emotion perception are expected to be in line with the previous results of Seidel et al. (2010). That is, negative emotions are expected to induce avoidant behaviour, and positive emotions are expected to induce approach behaviour. Automatic response as a part of emotion perception is expected to be mediated by social categorization in in- or out-group. Positive in-group emotions and negative out-group emotions are expected to lead to more approach related behaviour than negative in-group emotions and positive out-group emotion.
Method
Design
A 2 (in- vs. out-group) x 4 (emotional expression) x 2 (lever direction) design is used.
Materials and Procedure
In- and out-group will be manipulated according to Young & Hugenberg (2010). Perceived group membership of participants and targets will be manipulated using bogus
feedback from a personality test. Approach and avoidance behaviour will be measured with a joystick task. Participants will see twenty Caucasian male and female actors from the
NIMSTIM database (Tottenham et al., 2009) displaying anger and happiness.
After signing an informed consent, participants will be told they are participating in an experiment on the influence of personality on social perception. After that they will get the personality test to manipulate in- and out-group assigning them to either a green or a red group on basis of their personality. In fact they get randomly assigned to one of both colors. After this participants will see the facial emotion expressions to which they are instructed to react by pushing the lever for happiness, and pull for angriness, this pattern will be reversed halfway through the task for which there are 4 emotion expression conditions. After pushing or pulling the lever participants were asked to rate their tendency to approach or avoid the person showing the emotion on a 9-point scale (from -4 to +4).
Expected results
A 2 (in- vs. out-group) x 4 (emotional expression) x 2 (lever direction) ANOVA with repeated measures will be used for the joystick task. A 2 (in- vs. out-group) x 4 (emotional expression) ANOVA with repeated measures and the rating as a dependent measure will be used for the rating task.
For the joystick task main effects for in- and out-group as well as emotion expression is expected. Participants are expected to react faster to in-group happiness and out-group anger than to in-group anger and out-group happiness. For the rating task main effect for emotion expression is expected. Participants are expected to score higher the scale for positive emotions than for negative emotions for both in- and out-group.
Literature
Paladino, M.-P., & Castelli, L. (2008). On the immediate consequences of intergroup
categorization: Activation of approach and avoidance motor behaviour toward ingroup and outgroup members. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 755–768. Paulus, A., Musial, E., & Renn, K. (2014). Gender of the expresser moderates the effect of
emotional faces on the startle reflex. Cognition & emotion, (ahead-of-print), 1-9. Paulus, A., & Wentura, D. (2013). Threatening joy: Approach and avoidance reactions to
emotions are influenced by the group membership of the expresser. Cognition &
emotion, (ahead-of-print), 1-22.
Seidel, E.-M., Habel, U., Kirschner, M., Gur, R. C., & Derntl, B. (2010). The impact of facial emotional expressions on behavioural tendencies in women and men. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36, 500–507. Stangor, C. (2004). Social groups in action and interaction. New York: Psychology Press. Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., . . . Nelson, C.
A. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168, 242–249. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2008.05.006 Young, S. G., & Hugenberg, K. (2010). Mere social categorization modulates identification of
