Facial expressions allow inference of both emotions and their components

Abstract

Following Yik and Russell (1999) a judgement paradigm was used to examine to what extent differential accuracy of recognition of facial expressions allows evaluation of the well-foundedness of different theoretical views on emotional expression. Observers judged photos showing facial expressions of seven emotions on the basis of: (1) discrete emotion categories; (2) social message types; (3) appraisal results; or (4) action tendencies, and rated their confidence in making choices. Emotion categories and appraisals were judged significantly more accurately and confidently than messages or action tendencies. These results do not support claims of primacy for message or action tendency views of facial expression. Based on a componential model of emotion it is suggested that judges can infer components from categories and vice versa.

Notes

¹We could not use exactly the same photos as in the Yik and Russell study because the authors were unable to furnish the necessary information on the ID numbers of the photos used (J. A. Russell, personal communication, November 2002).

²As pointed out by Horstmann (2003), some of Fridlund's putative social messages are neither action requests nor behavioural intentions. At least some of Frijda's action tendencies could be considered more appropriately as messages. But we had to follow Yik and Russell's (1999) choices to allow for a replication.

³Given the problems one encounters when using generic appraisal check descriptions such as “goal conduciveness” with non-psychologists (for whom the notion of a motivational goal may be unfamiliar), we decided to use more concrete but highly representative examples.