scholarly journals How Being Observed Influences Preschoolers’ Emotions Following (Less) Deserving Help

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella Gerdemann ◽  
Ronja Büchner ◽  
Robert Hepach
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Body Posture ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Depth Sensor ◽  
Cooperative Relationships ◽  
Strategic Value ◽  
Imaging Camera ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Lowered Body

Children sometimes show positive emotions in response to seeing others being helped, yet it remains poorly understood whether there is a strategic value to such emotional expressions. Here, we investigated the influence seeing a peer receive deserving help or not on children’s emotions, which were assessed while the peer was present or not. To measure children’s emotional expression, we used a motion depth sensor imaging camera, which recorded children’s body posture. Five-year-old children (N = 122) worked on a task which yielded greater rewards for them compared to their peer, rendering the peer to be in greater need of help. An adult––who was unaware of the different levels of neediness––then either helped the child who had a lesser need for help (less deserving outcome) or helped the needier peer (deserving outcome). Overall, both children showed a lowered body posture, a more negative emotional expression, after not being helped and an elevated body posture, a more positive emotional expression, after being helped. Seeing their peer (less deservedly) not receive help, and to a lesser extent being observed, blunted children’s otherwise positive emotions in response to receiving help. These results are discussed in the broader theoretical context of how children’s emotions sometimes reflect their commitment to cooperative relationships with peers.

scholarly journals The ontogeny of children's social emotions in response to (un)fairness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella Gerdemann ◽  
Katherine McAuliffe ◽  
Peter Blake ◽  
Daniel B. M. Haun ◽  
Robert Hepach
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Negative Emotion ◽  
Early Ontogeny ◽  
Depth Sensor ◽  
Social Emotions ◽  
Social Emotion ◽  
Imaging Camera ◽  
Age Range ◽  
Human Sense ◽  
Lowered Body

Humans have a deeply-rooted sense of fairness, but its emotional foundation in early ontogeny remains poorly understood. Here, we ask if and when children show negative social emotions, such as shame or guilt, in response to advantageous unfairness expressed through a lowered body posture (measured using a Kinect depth sensor imaging camera). We will present young children across the age range of 4 to 9 years with a scenario in which one child (the actor) chooses between two opaque boxes each containing rewards. We then manipulate whether the actor’s box contains 4 rewards or 1 reward (while the other box always contains 1) and measure children’s emotional expression. In a nonsocial context, i.e., when the resource distribution affects only the acting child, we expect that children will express a positive emotion (an elevated posture) after receiving 4 rewards and a negative emotion (a lowered posture) after receiving 1 reward. The crucial question we ask is if and when in ontogeny children express social emotions in response to (un)fairness. In a social context, i.e., when the reward distribution affects the acting child and a peer recipient, receiving 4 rewards while a peer receives 1 reward should result in a negative social emotion similar to shame or guilt (lowered posture), whereas a 1-1 fair split should result in a positive emotion similar to pride (elevated posture). The systematic study of children’s social emotions across a wide age range will shed new light on emotional foundation of the human sense of fairness.

scholarly journals Cultural values shape the expression of self-evaluative social emotions

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje von Suchodoletz ◽  
Robert Hepach
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Body Posture ◽  
Upper Body ◽  
Depth Sensor ◽  
Social Emotions ◽  
Individualism And Collectivism ◽  
Upper Body Posture ◽  
Expression Of Emotions

AbstractSocial emotions are key to everyday social life and therefore shaped by cultural values in their expression. Prior research has focused on facial expressions of emotions. What is less clear, however, is the extent to which cultural values shape other modalities of emotional expression. In the present study, we applied a novel paradigm using depth sensor imaging technology to capture changes in participants’ body posture in real time. We aimed to (1) identify the nuances in the postural expression that are thought to characterize social emotions and (2) assess how individual differences in cultural values impact the postural expression of emotions. Participants in two separate studies were 132 undergraduate college students whose upper-body postural expansion was recorded after they recalled emotion episodes. Positive emotions elevated participants’ upper-body posture whereas negative emotions resulted in lowered upper-body posture. The effects on changes in upper-body posture were moderated by participants’ self-ratings of the vertical and horizontal dimensions of individualism and collectivism. The findings provide initial evidence of the nuances in the way cultural values influence the postural expression of emotions.

scholarly journals Collective Emotions during the COVID-19 Outbreak

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Metzler ◽  
Bernard Rimé ◽  
Max Pellert ◽  
Thomas Niederkrotenthaler ◽  
Anna Di Natale ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Life Changes ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Collective Emotions ◽  
Mental Health Support ◽  
Media Data

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the world's population to sudden challenges that elicited strong emotional reactions. Although investigations of responses to tragic one-off events exist, studies on the evolution of collective emotions during a pandemic are missing. We analyzed the digital traces of emotional expressions in tweets during five weeks after the start of outbreaks in 18 countries and six different languages. We observed an early strong upsurge of anxiety-related terms in all countries, which was stronger in countries with stronger increases in cases. Sadness terms rose and anger terms decreased around two weeks later, as social distancing measures were implemented. Positive emotions remained relatively stable. All emotions changed together with an increase in the stringency of measures during certain weeks of the outbreak. Our results show some of the most enduring changes in emotional expression observed in long periods of social media data. Words that frequently occurred in tweets suggest a shift in topics of conversation across all emotions, from political ones in 2019, to pandemic related issues during the outbreak, including everyday life changes, other people, and health. This kind of time-sensitive analyses of large-scale samples of emotional expression have the potential to inform mental health support and risk communication.

scholarly journals Is your mood more contagious if you are likeable? The role of liking in the social induction of affect

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Wróbel ◽  
Klara Królewiak
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
The Social

Abstract In the present study, we explored the role of liking in the social induction of affect. Dispositional likeability was manipulated by written reports describing a sender as a likeable or dislikeable character. Afterwards participants watched short videos presenting the sender displaying happy or sad emotional expressions. We expected that exposure to the likeable sender would lead to reactions concordant with his emotional expression (assimilation), whereas exposure to the dislikeable sender would result in discordant reactions (contrast). The results indicated that dispositional likeability influenced the social induction of affect when the sender expressed positive emotions. Moreover, liking mediated the effects of the happy sender’s dispositional likeability on participants’ affective state. Exposure to the sad sender, however, led to assimilation regardless of the sender’s dispositional likeability.

scholarly journals The Interpretation of E-Motions in Faces and Bodies Derived from Static Artworks by Individuals with High Functioning Autistic Spectrum

Vision ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Maria Elisa Della-Torre ◽  
Daniele Zavagno ◽  
Rossana Actis-Grosso
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Likert Scale ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Dynamic Component ◽  
Specific Emotion ◽  
Similar Range

E-motions are defined as those affective states the expressions of which—conveyed either by static faces or body posture—embody a dynamic component and, consequently, convey a higher sense of dynamicity than other emotional expressions. An experiment is presented, aimed at testing whether e-motions are perceived as such also by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), which have been associated with impairments in emotion recognition and in motion perception. To this aim we replicate with ASD individuals a study, originally conducted with typically developed individuals (TDs), in which we showed to both ASD and TD participants 14 bodiless heads and 14 headless bodies taken from eleven static artworks and four drawings. The Experiment was divided into two sessions. In Session 1 participants were asked to freely associate each stimulus to an emotion or an affective state (Task 1, option A); if they were unable to find a specific emotion, the experimenter showed them a list of eight possible emotions (words) and asked them to choose one from such list, that best described the affective state portrayed in the image (Task 1, option B). After their choice, they were asked to rate the intensity of the perceived emotion on a seven point Likert scale (Task 2). In Session 2 participants were requested to evaluate the degree of dynamicity conveyed by each stimulus on a 7 point Likert scale. Results showed that ASDs and TDs shared a similar range of verbal expressions defining emotions; however, ASDs (i) showed an impairment in the ability to spontaneously assign an emotion to a headless body, and (ii) they more frequently used terms denoting negative emotions (for both faces and bodies) as compared to neutral emotions, which in turn were more frequently used by TDs. No difference emerged between the two groups for positive emotions, with happiness being the emotion better recognized in both faces and in bodies. Although overall there are no significant differences between the two groups with respect to the emotions assigned to the images and the degree of perceived dynamicity, the interaction Artwork x Group showed that for some images ASDs assigned a different value than TDs to perceived dynamicity. Moreover, two images were interpreted by ASDs as conveying completely different emotions than those perceived by TDs. Results are discussed in light of the ability of ASDs to resolve ambiguity, and of possible different cognitive styles characterizing the aesthetical/emotional experience.

scholarly journals Typical emotional expression in children’s drawings of the human face

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonora Cannoni ◽  
Giuliana Pinto ◽  
Anna Silvia Bombi
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Basic Emotions ◽  
Preferential Expression ◽  
Human Figure ◽  
Figure Drawings ◽  
Number Of Faces ◽  
Human Faces

AbstractThis study was aimed at verifying if children introduce emotional expressions in their drawings of human faces, and if a preferential expression exists; we also wanted to verify if children’s pictorial choices change with increasing age. To this end we examined the human figure drawings made by 160 boys and 160 girls, equally divided in 4 age groups: 6–7; 8–9; 10–11; 12–13 years; mean ages (SD in parentheses) were: 83,30 (6,54); 106,14 (7,16) 130,49 (8,26); 155,40 (6,66). Drawings were collected with the Draw-a-Man test instructions, i.e. without mentioning an emotional characterization. In the light of data from previous studies of emotion drawing on request, and the literature about preferred emotional expressions, we expected that an emotion would be portrayed even by the younger participants, and that the preferred emotion would be happiness. We also expected that with the improving ability to keep into account both mouth and eyes appearance, other expressions would be found besides the smiling face. Data were submitted to non-parametric tests to compare the frequencies of expressions (absolute and by age) and the frequencies of visual cues (absolute and by age and expressions). The results confirmed that only a small number of faces were expressionless, and that the most frequent emotion was happiness. However, with increasing age this representation gave way to a variety of basic emotions (sadness, fear, anger, surprise), whose representation may depend from the ability to modify the shapes of both eyes and mouth and changing communicative aims of the child.

The Integration of Emotional Expression and Experience: A Pragmatist Review of Recent Evidence From Brain Stimulation

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caruana Fausto
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Affective Neuroscience ◽  
Common View ◽  
Frontal Operculum ◽  
Affective Experiences ◽  
Stimulation Of

A common view in affective neuroscience considers emotions as a multifaceted phenomenon constituted by independent affective and motor components. Such dualistic connotation, obtained by rephrasing the classic Darwin and James’s theories of emotion, leads to the assumption that emotional expression is controlled by motor centers in the anterior cingulate, frontal operculum, and supplementary motor area, whereas emotional experience depends on interoceptive centers in the insula. Recent stimulation studies provide a different perspective. I will outline two sets of findings. First, affective experiences can be elicited also following the stimulation of motor centers. Second, emotional expressions can be elicited by stimulating interoceptive regions. Echoing the original pragmatist theories of emotion, I will make a case for the notion that emotional experience emerges from the integration of sensory and motor signals, encoded in the same functional network.

scholarly journals Is There a Role for Language in Emotion Perception?

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Disa A. Sauter
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Emotion Perception ◽  
Linguistic Relativity ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Levels Of Processing ◽  
Perception Of Emotions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Emotion Concepts ◽  
Different Levels

What is the relationship between language, emotion concepts, and perceptual categories? Here I compare the strong Whorfian view of linguistic relativity, which argues that language plays a necessary role in the perception of emotions, to the alternative view that different levels of processing (e.g., linguistic, conceptual, perceptual) are relatively independent and thus, that language does not play a foundational role in emotion perception. I examine neuropsychological studies that have tested strong claims of linguistic relativity, and discuss research on categorical perception of emotional expressions, where the two accounts have been directly tested against each other. As in other perceptual domains, there is little evidence that language plays a foundational role in the perception of emotion.

Does Emotional Expression Moderate Implicit Racial Bias? Examining Bias Following Smiling and Angry Primes

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 570-590
Author(s):  
Afsaneh Raissi ◽  
Jennifer R. Steele
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Contrast Effect ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Implicit Racial Bias ◽  
Affect Misattribution Procedure

Given the pervasiveness of prejudice, researchers have become increasingly interested in examining racial bias at the intersection of race and other social and perceptual categories that have the potential to disrupt these negative attitudes. Across three studies, we examined whether the emotional expression of racial exemplars would moderate implicit racial bias. We found that racial bias on the Affect Misattribution Procedure only emerged in response to angry but not smiling Black male faces in comparison to White (Study 1) or White and Asian (Study 3) male faces with similar emotional expressions. Racial bias was also found toward Asian targets (Studies 2 and 3), but not only following angry primes. These findings suggest that negative stereotypes about Black men can create a contrast effect, making racial bias toward smiling faces less likely to be expressed in the presence of angry Black male faces.

scholarly journals Emotion and Gender Typicality Cue Sexual Orientation Differently in Women and Men

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 2547-2560
Author(s):  
R. Thora Bjornsdottir ◽  
Nicholas O. Rule
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Role Expectations ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Gender Typicality ◽  
Gender Role Expectations ◽  
Gender Inversion ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Heterosexual individuals tend to look and act more typical for their gender compared to gay and lesbian individuals, and people use this information to infer sexual orientation. Consistent with stereotypes associating happy expressions with femininity, previous work found that gay men displayed more happiness than straight men—a difference that perceivers used, independent of gender typicality, to judge sexual orientation. Here, we extended this to judgments of women’s sexual orientation. Like the gender-inversion stereotypes applied to men, participants perceived women’s faces manipulated to look angry as more likely to be lesbians; however, emotional expressions largely did not distinguish the faces of actual lesbian and straight women. Compared to men’s faces, women’s faces varied less in their emotional expression (appearing invariably positive) but varied more in gender typicality. These differences align with gender role expectations requiring the expression of positive emotion by women and prohibiting the expression of femininity by men. More important, greater variance within gender typicality and emotion facilitates their respective utility for distinguishing sexual orientation from facial appearance. These findings thus provide the first evidence for contrasting cues to women’s and men’s sexual orientation and suggest that gender norms may uniquely shape how men and women reveal their sexual orientation.

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