Feeling Bad and Looking Worse: Negative Affect Is Associated with Reduced Perceptions of Face-Healthiness

Some people perceive themselves to look more, or less attractive than they are in reality. We investigated the role of emotions in enhancement and derogation effects; specifically, whether the propensity to experience positive and negative emotions affects how healthy we perceive our own face to look and how we judge ourselves against others. A psychophysical method was used to measure healthiness of self-image and social comparisons of healthiness. Participants who self-reported high positive (N = 20) or negative affectivity (N = 20) judged themselves against healthy (red-tinged) and unhealthy looking (green-tinged) versions of their own and stranger’s faces. An adaptive staircase procedure was used to measure perceptual thresholds. Participants high in positive affectivity were un-biased in their face health judgement. Participants high in negative affectivity on the other hand, judged themselves as equivalent to less healthy looking versions of their own face and a stranger’s face. Affective traits modulated self-image and social comparisons of healthiness. Face health judgement was also related to physical symptom perception and self-esteem; high physical symptom reports were associated a less healthy self-image and high self-reported (but not implicit) self-esteem was associated with more favourable social comparisons of healthiness. Subject to further validation, our novel face health judgement task could have utility as a perceptual measure of well-being. We are currently investigating whether face health judgement is sensitive to laboratory manipulations of mood

Phylogeography of Eleotris fusca (Teleostei: Gobioidei: Eleotridae) in the Indo-Pacific area reveals a cryptic species in the Indian Ocean

International audienceIndo-Pacific insular freshwater systems are mainly dominated by amphidromous species. Eleotris fusca is a widespread one, its life cycle is characterised by a marine pelagic larval phase allowing the species to disperse in the ocean and then to recruit to remote island rivers. In the present study, the population structure of E. fusca over its Indo-Pacific distribution range (Western Indian Ocean to French Polynesia, Pacific Ocean) was evaluated. We analysed a section of mitochondrial COI of 557 individuals sampled from 28 islands to visualise the population structure. Haplotypes diversity (Hd) was between 0.458 and 1 and, nucleotide diversity (π) was between 0.001 and 0.02. Two distinct genetic groups appeared, one in the Indian Ocean and the other in the Pacific Ocean (FST mean = 0.901; 5.2% average divergence). Given these results, complete mitogenomes (mtDNA) were sequenced and combined with the nuclear Rhodopsin (Rh) gene for a subset of individuals. The two phylogenetic trees based on each analysis showed the same genetic pattern: two different groups belonging to the Indian and the Pacific oceans (6.6 and 1.6% of divergence for mtDNA and Rh gene respectively), which supported species level differentiation. These analyses revealed the presence of two sister species confounded until present under the name of Eleotris fusca. One of them is cryptic and endemic of the Indian Ocean and the other one is the true E. fusca, which keeps, nevertheless, its status of widespread species