PowerPoint® Presentation by Jim Foley Emotions, Stress and Health PowerPoint® Presentation by Jim Foley © 2013 Worth Publishers

Module 36: Expressed Emotion

See if you can tell what emotions others are feeling, showing, and expressing about these topics: Detecting emotions in others Gender, emotion, nonverbal behavior Culture and expressed emotions Using context to read emotions Are there universally recognized emotions? Do facial expressions affect feelings? No animation.

Emotional Expression Are there universal forms of emotional expression seen on human faces across all cultures? Are there differences by individual, culture, or gender in how emotions are expressed? What is the relationship between emotional expression and the inner experience of emotion? What emotion do we see in these faces and body positions? If these emotions are hard to read, is it because it’s a different culture from your own, or because it’s a performance? Click to reveal bullets. Instructor: another term for expressed emotion (the emotional signs of emotion that we can detect in others) is “affect” (pronounced with the first syllable stressed).

Detecting Emotion in Others People read a great deal of emotional content in the eyes (“the window to the soul”) and the faces. Introverts are better at detecting emotions; extroverts have emotions that are easier to read. We are primed to quickly detect negative emotions, and even negative emotion words. Those who have been abused are biased toward seeing fearful faces as angry, as in the test below. These faces morph from fear to anger. Raise your hand when you first see anger under the red box. Click to reveal bullets. Then, when you see the red box appear, the next click starts the animation.

Detecting Lies and Fakes Brain signs of lying: Polygraphs (detecting physiological arousal) fail sometimes at correctly identifying when people are lying. Visible signs of lying: eye blinks decrease, and other facial movements change. In which image is Paul Ekman “lying” with a fake smile?  A real smile uses involuntary muscles around the eyes. Click to reveal bullets.

Gender and Emotional Expression and Detection We also see some emotions as being more “male,” changing our perception of a gender-neutral face based on the emotion (below): Women seem to have greater and more complex emotional expression. Women are also more skilled at detecting emotions in others. However, this is an overgeneralization. People tend to attribute women’s emotionality to their dispositions, and attribute men’s emotions to their circumstances. Click to reveal bullets. Male or female? How about now?

Culture and Emotional Expression: Are There Universally Recognized Emotions? There seem to be some universally understood facial expressions. People of various cultures agree on the emotional labels for the expressions on the faces on the right. People in other studies did have more accuracy judging emotions from their own culture. Click to reveal bullets. Instructor: you can challenge students by asking them to make quicker judgments about similar images. “Which one in the first row is closer to “joy”? [left is happy, right is surprise]. Which one in the second row is “sad”? [left is sad, right is afraid] Which one in the last row is “angry”? [left is anger, right is disgust]. See if students can see the differences in the nose and eyes in the image on the right.

An Evolutionary Theory of the Origins of Emotional Facial Expressions People blind from birth show the same facial expressions as sighted people. This suggests that the origin of facial expressions must be largely genetic. Why would we have facial expressions in our genetic code? Could facial expressions improve the survival of our ancestors? Perhaps sneering at someone might be like a wolf’s snarl, warning competitors to back off. The “surprised” facial expression allows us to take in information. Shared smiles build protective social bonds, which may explain why we smile more when facing someone. Click to reveal bullets. Another possible evolutionary example: the expression of “disgust” might close the nostrils to block breathing of toxic fumes.

Emotion Detection and Context Cues What emotions do you see below? How can you tell what emotions he is feeling? Because the faces are exactly the same, our detection of emotion must be based on context: the situation, gestures, and the tears. No animation.

Linking Emotions and Expressive Behaviors: Facial Feedback The facial feedback effect: facial position and muscle changes can alter which emotion we feel. In one study, people whose faces were moved into smiling or frowning positions experienced a change in mood. Fake a relaxed smile, and you might feel better! It’s not just about faces. In one experiment, extending a 1) middle finger or 2) thumb while reading led to seeing characters with 1) hostility or 2) positive attitude. Click to reveal bullets. Instructor: here are some introductory comments before the bullets appear. We seem biologically ready for emotional experience (sadness) to trigger a related facial expression (drooping eyes, frown). How connected are these feelings and expressive behaviors? Does the connection work in the other direction? Will frowning make me sad? (The images from the book have labels removed. You can remind students of the bandages/rubber band placement.) Exercise you can do with students: with a box of straws, have students alternately 1) hold the end of the straw pursed in their lips only, head tipped down, and 2) hold the straw sideways in their mouths, in gritted teeth, pushed back so that lips are stretched and pushed back, head held back. In each case, ask them to think about a person 1) who lives in the room/house next door, and 2) who lives across the hall/street. Take a poll to see if people felt more negatively about 2) and more positively about 1). About the man at the top feeling happier, you can ask your students: was this because of the facial feedback effect, or because the guy at the bottom was more uncomfortable?   The guy at the top, though forced into a smiling position, ended up feeling happier than the other guy.

Photo Credits Slide 2: Slide 4: Network Photographers/Alamy Used by permission of S. D. Pollack, D. J. Kistler, and the National Academy of Sciences Ekman & Matsumoto, Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotions Hillel Aviezer, Ran R. Hassin, Jennifer Ryan, Cheryl Grady, Josh Susskind, Adam Anderson, Morris Moscovitch, Shlomo Bentin Slide 4: Network Photographers/Alamy Slide 5: Used by permission of S. D. Pollack, D. J. Kistler, and the National Academy of Sciences Slide 6: Paul Ekman Lucy Reading/Lucy Illustrations Slide 7: © APA/Vaughn Becker Slide 8: Ekman & Matsumoto, Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotions; Slide 10: Hillel Aviezer, Ran R. Hassin, Jennifer Ryan, Cheryl Grady, Josh Susskind, Adam Anderson, Morris Moscovitch, Shlomo Bentin