Laboratory for the Study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression (E3Lab), Department of Psychology, and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2012 Jun;102(6):1118-35. doi: 10.1037/a0026885. Epub 2012 Jan 30.
The notion of social appraisal emphasizes the importance of a social dimension in appraisal theories of emotion by proposing that the way an individual appraises an event is influenced by the way other individuals appraise and feel about the same event. This study directly tested this proposal by asking participants to recognize dynamic facial expressions of emotion (fear, happiness, or anger in Experiment 1; fear, happiness, anger, or neutral in Experiment 2) in a target face presented at the center of a screen while a contextual face, which appeared simultaneously in the periphery of the screen, expressed an emotion (fear, happiness, anger) or not (neutral) and either looked at the target face or not. We manipulated gaze direction to be able to distinguish between a mere contextual effect (gaze away from both the target face and the participant) and a specific social appraisal effect (gaze toward the target face). Results of both experiments provided evidence for a social appraisal effect in emotion recognition, which differed from the mere effect of contextual information: Whereas facial expressions were identical in both conditions, the direction of the gaze of the contextual face influenced emotion recognition. Social appraisal facilitated the recognition of anger, happiness, and fear when the contextual face expressed the same emotion. This facilitation was stronger than the mere contextual effect. Social appraisal also allowed better recognition of fear when the contextual face expressed anger and better recognition of anger when the contextual face expressed fear.
社会评价的概念强调了评价理论中情绪的社会维度的重要性，提出个体对事件的评价方式受到其他个体对同一事件的评价和感受方式的影响。本研究通过要求参与者在屏幕中央识别目标面部呈现的动态表情（实验 1 中的恐惧、快乐或愤怒；实验 2 中的恐惧、快乐、愤怒或中性），同时在屏幕边缘同时呈现一个上下文面部，该面部表达一种情绪（恐惧、快乐、愤怒）或不表达情绪（中性），并且观察目标面部或不观察目标面部，直接测试了这一假设。我们操纵注视方向，以便能够区分单纯的上下文效应（既不注视目标面部也不注视参与者）和特定的社会评价效应（注视目标面部）。两个实验的结果都为情绪识别中的社会评价效应提供了证据，该效应不同于单纯的上下文信息效应：尽管在两种条件下面部表情相同，但上下文面部的注视方向影响了情绪识别。当上下文面部表达相同的情绪时，社会评价促进了对愤怒、快乐和恐惧的识别。这种促进作用强于单纯的上下文效应。当上下文面部表达愤怒时，社会评价也允许更好地识别恐惧，当上下文面部表达恐惧时，社会评价也允许更好地识别愤怒。
