Facing exclusion and smiling through the pain: positive emotion expression during interpersonal ostracism

Elena Svetieva,1 Lisa Zadro,2 Daejoong Kim,3 Carolyn M Hurley,4 Rani Goodacre21Department of Communication, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA; 2School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia; 3Department of Media & Communication, Dong-A University, Busan, South Korea; 4Department of Communication Studies and Theatre, Northern Virginia Community College, Sterling, VA, USABackground: The present research compares smiling and emotion expression generally to other indicators of negative intra- and interpersonal reactions to ostracism, and in particular negative reactions towards the ostracizers.Methods: A total of N=143 participants (n=55 in Experiment 1 and n=88 in Experiment 2) were ostracized from a web-conference by two other individuals. Facial expressions of participants during the exclusion period were coded using EMFACS and compared to self-reported reactions to ostracism and the sources of the ostracism.Results: Ostracized individuals showed significant levels of both Duchenne (genuine) and non-Duchenne (social) smiling, despite finding ostracism highly aversive, reporting more negative attitudes towards the ostracizing confederates, and (in Experiment 2) higher levels of negative affect. Experiment 2 showed evidence of a self-regulation and display management function of smiling during ostracism in that participants who exhibited more Duchenne smiling during their exclusion also reported higher levels of positive emotion after the ostracism, and were also rated by a group of judges as experiencing more amusement at their exclusion.Conclusion: The web conferencing paradigm used in this study provides an ecologically valid method to study the management of expressive behavior during aversive interpersonal experiences, adding to the existing evidence of facial display management during other types of distressing experience.Keywords: ostracism, facial expressions, self-regulation, emotion, display rules &nbsp

The Influence of Facial Width-to-Height Ratio on Micro-expression Recognition

Part 5: Perceptual IntelligenceInternational audienceThe aim of the present study was to uncover the potential impact of facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) on micro-expression and macro-expression recognition. The JACBART paradigm was used for the presentation of facial expressions. Participants were asked to recognize six kinds of basic expressions (sadness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, happiness) on high fWHR faces or on low fWHR faces under 67 ms, 333 ms and 600 ms duration conditions respectively. The results indicated that, the fWHR did not affect the recognition of macro-expressions which were presented for 600 ms in the present study, but the fWHR could influence the recognition accuracy of micro-expressions of surprise and happiness. Specifically, participants could identify the facial expression of surprise more effectively on high fWHR faces than on low fWHR faces under the condition of 67 ms. And participants also could recognize the facial expression of happiness more accurately on high fWHR faces in the conditions of 67 ms and 333 ms. These results revealed the facial expressions of happiness and surprise on high fWHR faces may have an early processing advantage in micro-expression recognition. And the result also demonstrated that individuals spontaneously use fWHR as a clue to recognize micro-expressions