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Understanding Emotional Expressions in Intergroup Processes - Coggle…
Understanding Emotional Expressions in Intergroup Processes
Expressions
Impact
Avoidance
Avoid those looking angry
Happy
More affiliation/group belonging/positive social experiences
Display rules
Go against norms/judgement
Stereotypes
Influence perception of others
Impression of others
Smiling more friendly
Importance
Social interactions help understand others emotional states
How interaction may go positive/negative
May elicit empathetic responses from others
Communicate emotional state to others & others share emotional state w. self
Bonding
May be evolutionary
Ingroup & Intergroup Emotions
Theories
Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)
People categorise themselves into ingroups
Identify w. them
Compare them to outgroups
Often favour own group to enhance self-worth
Lead to ingroup favouritism & outgroup discrimination
Process
Social categorisation
Social identification
Social comparison
Self-Categorisation Theory (Turner, 1987)
Cognitive process of categorisation
Create sense of identification w. social category/group
Produce behaviours associated w. group membership
Conformity
Stereotyping
Ethnocentrism
Three levels
I
We & them
We humans
Intergroup Emotions Theory (Mackie & Smith, 2018)
Emotions people feel on account of membership to group that they belong & identify w.
When social identity salient appraise events in terms of implications for ingroup
Not individual self
Emotions come from group membership & group emotions can become own emotions
Process
Group emotions arise through activation & experience of emotions associated w. group membership
Can become group norm
Can happen even when conflicting norms
Decategorise some members of group to ignore conflicting norms
May lead to schism
Group-based emotions can be triggered through appraisal/interpretation/construal
Schism
Subgroups forming
Some may leave group
Study: Construal (Crisp et al., 2007)
Examined social identity threat in UK football fans
Measures by ingroup emotional expression based on team success/failure
Following match losses lower group identitifcation felt sad
Higher group identification felt angry
Social identification associated w. emotional & behavioural responses to intergroup threat
Feeling bad when sports team loses & contribute to football hooliganism
Even though fans not contribute to outcome
Study: Emotions (Mackie & Smith, 2018)
Positive & negative emotions
Distinct emotions linked to distinct behaviours
Study: Emotions (Tausch et al., 2011)
Analysed various examples of group perspectives to events/policy
Anger predict support for extreme/more common forms of confrontation
Disgust appeared to be associated w. more extreme & aggressive intergroup behaviour
Study; Positive Emotions (Mackie & Smith, 2018)
Positive emotions seen
Collective hope
Respect
Trust
Forgiveness
Promote de-escalation & reconciliation
Study: Collective Action (Mackie & Smith, 2018)
Can encourage
E.g. offensive-defensive
Study: Appraisals (van Zomeren et al., 2004, 2008, 2015)
Appraisals such as harm/injustic feed group-based anger
Particualrly for negative emotions
Study: Stereotypes (Mackie & Smith, 2018)
Intergroup emotions affect intergroup behaviour
Through ingroup perceptions & interpretations of outgroup group-based emotions
Study: Stereotypes (Moons et al., 2017)
Highly vulnerable to stereotypes
Social Appraisal Theory (Bruder et al., 2014)
Emotions influenced by how others think & feel about same event
Emotions extracted/generated by own & others appraisals of events happening around us
React to events & react to how others react
Uncertainty about situation influence extent individuals will engage in social appraisal
Reliability Hypothesis
Pay attention to who can trust w. appraisals
Dialect Theory (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2003)
Uses linguistic metaphor to suggest emotion a universal language
But are dialects that account for universal differences
Support notion of in-group advantage as explain higher accuracy in recognising emotions from own cultures
Study: Support (Elfenbein, 2007)
P: Quebec (Canada) & Gabon
M: Pose facial expressions & dialects demonstrated by diff muscles activating for same expressions
Ps judge stimuli as well as culturally standardised stimuli
Ingroup advantage observed for non-standardised stimuli
Criticisms
Lab based photos lack ecological validity
Static posed expressions may not reflect real-life emotional communication
Forced-choice response formats inflate accuracy rates
Familiarity hypothesis
People may recognise emotions better simply because are more familiair w. ingroup faces not because of emotional dialect differences
Not consistent across all emotions
Happiness & anger often recognised across cultures so may be more salient
Within group variation
Effect sizes modest
Many studies use WEIRD samples
Critique (Matumoto, 2002)
Criticise Elfenbein & Ambady (2002)
Limitiations in methods of studies used as evidence for hypothesis in meta-analysis
Unbalanced design
Too much variation/lack of clarity in stimuli
Suggest need more robust designs to facilitate investigation of ingroup advantage if exists
Emotional Contagion (Hatfield et al., 1992)
Spread of emotions & behaviours between individuals & amongst groups
Induce emotional states/behaviours
Can be conscious/unconscious & automatic
Can be positive/negative
Not just empathy but mimicry
Ripple Effect (Barsade, 2000)
Confederate able to elicit positive emotional contagion in experimental group task
Led to increased cooperation & perception of performance
Study: Facebook (Kramer et al., 2014)
P: N = 689,003
M: Manipulate news feed of Facebook users over week
R: Content affected posting
Results
Ps who saw less negative content posted less negative content
Ps who saw less positive content posted less positive content
Implication
Suggest emotional contagion occur when not present in real-life
Online friends enough to elicit effect
But effect size small & Ps not consent to be in study
Potentially saw more negative content as part of experiment
Origin
Evolutionary
Universal
Cultural
Evolutionary
Darwin suggest emotion evolved as were adaptive
Help humans survive by developing social bonds/mate/recognise danger
Universal (Ekman, 1970s)
Proposed six basic innate & universal emotions
Basic Emotions
Happiness
Sadness
Disgust
Fear
Anger
Surprise
Study: Basic Emotions (Ekman & Friesen, 1971)
West & New Gineau
Study
Study: (Bai et al., 2018)
P: US & Chinese
M: Given emotion emojis & sort based on similarity
R: Correlated over .90 across cultures
Implication
Still universal but more complex than once thought
More than basic emotions
Demonstrate cultural similarities
Emotion can relate to each other often in distinct categories
Issue
Accuracy for universal expressions lower in non-Western culture
Attributed to different factors
Factors
Bias
Western definitions of emotions
Static images not dynamic
Not realistic
Conclusion (Jack et al., 2016)
Some expressions universal
But accents & linguistic differences in ways emotions defined appear
Universal Expressions
Happiness
Sadness
Fear/surprise
Anger/disgust
Criticisms
Methodology change to met expectations
Forced choice
Translators
Emotions not expressed in same way across cultures
Not account for cultural differences
Not account for cultural bias in emotion recognition
Oversimplification of emotions
Emotions considered more complex than distinct categories
Alternative Theories (Barrett, 2006)
Posit experience of emotion constructed based on combination of physiological, cognitive. & situational factors
Cultural
Cultural variability in certain areas
Cultural Variability
Language
Display Rules
Cultural Variability in Language
How emotion conceptualised w/in language/culture
Study: Conceptualisation of Emotions (Zhou et al., 2022)
P: English & Chinese
R: Emotions conceptualised differently
Results
In Chinese emotion concepts more strongly linked to feelings arising from afferent representations of introspective states & is more reflective
In English emotion concepts more closely linked to physical & behavioural expressions of emotion & is more reactive
Display Rules
Cultural differences in norms of displaying emotions
Study: Conceptualisation & Emotions (Matsumoto, 1990)
P: American & Japanese
M: Asking about appropriateness of displaying certain emotions in certain situations
A: Scores averaged to produce composite ingroup/outgroup high/low status categories
R: Displays depend on culture
Method
Emotions
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Happiness
Sadness
Surprise
Situations
Alone
In public
W. close friends
W. family
W. casual acquaintences
W. people of higher status
W. lower status
W. children
Results
Americans rate disgust & sadness in ingrou[ as more appropriate than Japanese
Americans rate happiness in public as more appropriate than Japanese
Japanese rate anger more appropriate in outgrups & lower status than Americans
Implication
Influence of status may have significant role
Ingroup & Outgroup Faces (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002)
M: Meta-analysis
R: Higher accuracy when emotions expressed & recgnised by members of same regional/national/ethnic group
Majority group members poorer at judging minority group members
Higher motivation/attention?
Shared expressive norms?
Ingroup advantage?
Small advantage for cultural groups that have greater exposure to each other
Proximity/living w/in one nation/bordering nations
May be familiarity effect, pracitce & learnning of faces
Collectivist cultures worst at recognising emotions from other regions
Compared to increased ability when recognising stimuli from own region
Cultural differences
Different concepts of emotions may not translate across different cultures causing poorer recognition outside own culture
Familiar faces processes more accurately & efficiently
Same for emotional states of own-group stimuli?
Ingroup & Outgroup Vocal Expression (Laukka & Elfenbein, 2021)
M: Meta-analysis
Emotion recognition from speech prosody/vocalisations from range of 26 culture groups w. range of 44 cultures of Ps
Found variety emotions could be recognised across cultures
Evidence for ingroup advantages w. higher accuracy in win vs cross-cultural conditions
Ingroup & Outgroup Face Memory (Wolff et al., 2014)
A: Own gender bias to face recognition
M: EEG
R: Ps show own gender bias
Better memoty for ingroup faces
Implication
Ingroup faces receive greater attention & deeper encoding
Supports ingroup bias
Own gender more deeply processed as perceived as ingroup?
May be because more socially relevant
Expression & Social Perception
Stereotypes
People sometimes interpret emotions in way consistent w. socially shared stereotypes
Related to gender/ethnic group membership
Study: Stereotype (Bijlstra et al., 2014)
Ps more readily perceive anger on Moroccan faces & sadness on White faces
Stereotype consistent expressions decoded faster than stereotype inconsistent expressions
Suggests stereotypes can shape emotion perception potentially reinforcing themselves by guiding attention & interpretation in stereotype confirming ways
Mechanisms
Likely involve social categorisation & congitive biases rather than inherent differences
May be influenced by cultural context, media portrayals, & prejudice
Ingroup & Outgroup
Holisitic processing advantage
Driven by experience/familiarity & ingroup relevance not innate differences
Regognition bias
Reflect perceptial exposure & socially relevant ingroup attention
Links to stereotypes & social context as ambiguous expression on outgroup faces often interpreted according to stereotypes
Automatic social categorisation activates group-based expectations
Biases attention, encoding, & interpretation
Biases socially constructred
Shaped by history, culture, & media not biological traits
Study: Holistic Bias (Michel et al., 2006)
Own race faces processed more quickly & as integrated wholes vs other-race faces
Study: Recognition Bias (Hugenberg et al., 2010)
Same-race faces generally remembered more accurately
Study: Stereotypes (Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003)
Angry black male bias
Study: Stereotyping
Race
Gender
Age
Social class
Sexual orientation
Poilitical affiliation
Study: Race Stereotype
Structural resemblance
Prejudice
Study: Race (Adams et al., 2022)
White faces structurally resemble anger more
But black faces more associated w. anger
Angry & black association socially constructed
Study: Race (Hutchings ^ Haddock, 2008)
More imlicit prejudice
Rate black faces as angry compared to white faces
Study: Race (Zebrowitz et al., 2010)
White faces resemble angry expressions more than Black/East Asian
Black faces resemble happy expressions more what White
Overgeneralisation may contribute to stereotypes
Study: Gender Stereotype
Emotion-based
Equating faces
Study: Gender (Hess et al., 2004)
Western gender stereotypes of women as affiliative (belonging to group) & happier, & men as dominant & more likely to show anger
When male & female facial features equated a reversal of stereotypes observed
Women rated angrier & men happier
Suggest stereotypes mediated by facial features
Study: Gender (Hess et al., 2009)
Certain facial features associated w. certain emotions
Features also associate w. certain genders
Even when presented w. androgynous face anger associated w. male face ratings & happiness & fear associated w. female faces
Study: Age (Albohn & Adams Jr, 2020)
Older faces judged as being more negative even when neutral stimuli used
Ps college students
May be ingroup bias
May be negative associated w. older faces
Do older faces have more facial characteristics associated w. nagative emotions
Study: Social Class (Bjornsottir & Rule, 2017)
More positive faces perceived higher in social class & negative faces as lower
Impression of social class associated w. perceived employability
Study: Sexual Orientation (Bjornsdottir & Rule, 2020)
Stereotypes of gay men being happier & more feminie & lesbians being angry
However emotional expressions largely not distinguish faces of actual lesbian & straight woman
However on male faces more variance in emotion expressions & gender norms gace more cues for identification of gay/straight male faces
Study: Political Affiliation (Tskhay & Rule, 2015)
Mental representations of gay & liberal faces characterised by more positive facial epxressions than mental representations of stright conservative faces
Ps expressed more positive emotions when enacting self-defined gay & liberal vs straight & conservative emotional expressions
Perception of Traits
Study: Perception (Knutson, 1996)
Happiness & surprise liked to high dominance & affiliation
Group membership
Anger & disgust linked to high dominance & low affiliation
Fearfulness & sadness linked to low dominance
Study: Perception of Traits (Hess et al., 2000)
Emotional expressions can affect perceptions of dominance & affiliation
However dominace required strong intensity emotions to be attributed whilst affiliation only needed weak emotions to be detected
Gender & ethnicity can also affect perception of dominance and affiliation
Study: Perception of Traits (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2009)
Happy faces equate to perception fo trustworthiness
Angry faces equate to perception of untrustworthiness
Familair faces rated as happier
Are they seen as more trustworthy?
Criticisms
Heavy reliance on WEIRD samples
Self-report measures
Artifical lab manipulations of identity salience
Confounding group membership w. socioeconomic status
Real-World Case Study
COVID-19 & Face Masks
Study: Perception of Traits (Marini et al., 2021)
Face masks hinder both facial emotion & identity recognition
Also affect perception of traits
Increased perception of untrustworthiness
Study: Health & Political Affiliatio (Ingram et al., 2024)
Mask-wearing had moderate impact on perceived trustworthiness
Varied by political orientation w. conservatives rating masked faces as less trustworthy than liberals did
Ps faster to approach masked faces compared to unmasked faces
But conservatives slower than liberals in approach time
Study: Perception of Threat (Grahlow et al., 2022)
Emotion recognition affected by face masks & bubbles
Investigated perception of threat
Sad, neutral, disgusted faces rated more threatening when wearing mask vs bubble
Association of face masks w. more negative emotions
Study: Health (Hareli et al., 2020)
Found in pre- & during-COVID-19 experiments facial expressions associated w. judgements of health
Happy faces associated w. being healthier compared to negative & neutral faces
Anger associated w. ill health
However only when context to suggest ill health
Older stimuli pre-pandemic has age-related stereotypes set expectations of ill health
All stimuli during pandemic
Health rating & emotion expression also associated w. distance P want to keep from expresser (stimuli)
Other Real-World
Sunglasses
Face coverings
Study: Sunglasses (Kim et al., 2022)
Face masks & sunglasses both negatively affect emotion recognition
But face masks more so
Suggest both mouth & eyes important for facial emotional expression recognition
Study: Facial Features (Koch, 2005)
Stimuli lacking mouth region & stimuli lacking eye region produced poorer emotional recognition
Both information from eyes & mouth needed for optimal emotional expression recognition
May be socially salient information
Study: Face Coverings (Kret & De Gelder, 2012)
Covering lower half of face can affect how observers percieve emotions
Often leading to interpretations of less happiness & more negative emotions
Effects occur for all types of lower-face coverings in experimental stimuli
Include caps, scarves, & niquabs
Ps tend to attribute more negative emotions to faces with coverings
Even though no evidence that wearers actually experience more negative emotions
Implication
Reflects perceptual & stereotype-based biases
Shaped by social expectations & experience w. facial cues
Rather than characteristics of wearer
Real-World Applications
Social groups/cultures
Communication & social interactions
Media
Clinical/medical