Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2022 Apr 7;17(4):e0263990. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263990. eCollection 2022.
Facial expression recognition has been studied extensively, including in relation to social anxiety. Nonetheless, a limited number of studies examined recognition of disgust expressions. Results suggest that disgust is perceived as more threatening than anger, and thus may invite more extreme responses. However, few studies have examined responses to facial expressions. These studies have focused on approach-avoidance responses. Our primary aim was to examine to what extent anger and disgust expressions might invite interpersonal responses in terms of quarrelsomeness-agreeableness and dominance-submissiveness. As social anxiety has been previously associated with a heightened sensitivity to anger and disgust expressions, as well as with alterations in quarrelsomeness-agreeableness and dominance-submissiveness, our secondary aim was to examine whether social anxiety would moderate these responses.
Participants were 55 women and 43 men who completed social anxiety measures, including the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation scale, and two tasks that involved "targets" expressing anger, disgust, or happiness at 0%, 50%, or 100%. Participants first indicated how quarrelsome or agreeable and how dominant or submissive they would be towards each target, and then how much they would avoid or approach each target.
While 100% disgust and anger expressions invited similar levels of quarrelsomeness and avoidance, 50% disgust invited more quarrelsomeness and stronger avoidance than 50% anger. While these patterns were not meaningfully moderated by social anxiety, individuals with higher BFNE scores showed a relatively strong approach of happy faces.
Actual interpersonal behaviour in response to facial expressions was not assessed.
Findings support the relevance of disgust as an interpersonal signal and suggest that, especially at mild intensity, disgust may have a stronger impact than anger on people's quarrelsomeness and avoidance responses. Findings provided no support for the view that people with social anxiety would be particularly responsive to disgust (or anger) expressions.
面部表情识别已得到广泛研究，包括与社交焦虑的关系。然而，只有少数研究考察了厌恶表情的识别。结果表明，厌恶被认为比愤怒更具威胁性，因此可能会引发更极端的反应。然而，很少有研究考察过对面部表情的反应。这些研究集中在接近-回避反应上。我们的主要目的是研究愤怒和厌恶表情在多大程度上可能会引起人际反应，表现在争吵性-和蔼性和支配性-顺从性上。由于社交焦虑先前与对愤怒和厌恶表情的敏感性增加以及争吵性-和蔼性和支配性-顺从性的改变有关，我们的次要目的是研究社交焦虑是否会调节这些反应。
参与者为 55 名女性和 43 名男性，他们完成了社交焦虑测量，包括Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation 量表和两个涉及“目标”以 0%、50%或 100%表达愤怒、厌恶或幸福的任务。参与者首先表明他们对每个目标会有多争吵或和蔼，以及多支配或顺从，然后表明他们会回避或接近每个目标的程度。
虽然 100%的厌恶和愤怒表情引起了相似程度的争吵和回避，但 50%的厌恶表情比 50%的愤怒表情引起了更多的争吵和更强的回避。虽然这些模式没有被社交焦虑明显调节，但 BFNE 得分较高的个体对快乐的面孔表现出相对强烈的接近。
没有评估对面部表情的实际人际行为的反应。
研究结果支持了厌恶作为一种人际信号的重要性，并表明，特别是在轻度强度下，厌恶可能比愤怒对人们的争吵性和回避反应产生更强的影响。研究结果没有支持社交焦虑的人会对厌恶（或愤怒）表情特别敏感的观点。
