Emotional Responses to Disfigured Faces: The Influences of Perceived Anonymity, Empathy, and Disgust Sensitivity

Abstract

Two experiments investigated self-reported emotional reactions to photographs of people with attractive, unattractive or structurally disfigured faces. In Experiment 1 participants viewing disfigured faces reported raised levels of sorrow and curiosity but not raised levels of negative emotions. In Experiment 2 there was more negative emotion and less positive emotion reported under conditions of relatively high anonymity, compared to low anonymity, specific to disfigured faces, suggesting that self-reports are influenced by social desirability. Trait empathy was associated with sorrow and negative emotions when viewing disfigured faces. Disgust sensitivity was associated with negative emotions and inversely associated with positive emotions. (99 words)

The Signaling Theory of Symptoms

“…This makes sense from the standpoint of pathogen avoidance, since strangers are more likely to carry novel pathogens for which the immune system is not yet prepared (Fincher & Thornhill, 2012;Navarrete & Fessler, 2006;Stevenson & Repacholi, 2005). Second, the fast automatic reaction of avoidance can be overridden by a slow, controlled, and rule-based process that takes into account social norms and social pressure (Kleck, 1969;Kleck, Ono, & Hastorf, 1966;Pryor, Reeder, Yeadon, & Hesson-McInnis, 2004;Stone & Potton, 2014). One of these social norms might be to help sick group members (Schaller, 2011).…”

Emotional responses to disfigured faces and Disgust Sensitivity: An eye-tracking study

“…The faces used in previous experiments (Stone & Wright, 2012;Stone & Potton, 2014) were used again in the present experiment. These comprised two male and two female faces, one of each gender with disfigurement to the eyes and the other with disfigurement to the mouth-cheek.…”

“…According to the Changing Faces organisation one person in 111 in the UK has a disfigurement to the face (Changing Faces, Face Equality, 2014) and people with facial disfigurement experience stigmatisation due to their difference in appearance (e.g., Lawrence, Rosenberg, & Fauerbach, 2007;Stone & Wright, 2012). Individuals with facial disfigurement frequently report being stared at in public places (e.g., Jowett & Ryan, 1985) and other studies have reported heightened levels of negative emotional response to a disfigured face (Shanmugarajah, Gaind, Clarke, & Butler, 2012;Stone & Potton, 2014). Despite this, there is little research linking the attention paid to facial disfigurement and the emotional response to a disfigured face.…”

“…Ishii, Carey, Byre, et al (2009) observed that an area of peripheral deformity received more attentional focus, and the internally expressive features of eyes, nose and mouth received less attention, in a face with a peripheral deformity compared to a non-disfigured face. Stone and Potton (2014) asked participants to report the degree to which they experienced 21 different emotions when they observed disfigured faces, under conditions of high anonymity (which was theorised to promote honest reporting). Participants experienced stronger negative emotions (anger, fear, disgust, anxiety, embarrassment, and repulsion), stronger sorrow emotions (sadness and sympathy), stronger curiosity and surprise, and weaker positive emotions, when they viewed disfigured faces compared to unattractive or attractive faces.…”

“…Disgust has been linked to the perception of disfigured faces, for example, Curtis, de Barra and Aunger (2011) reported that the emotion of disgust was elicited by the perception of an individual with a deformity, and Stone and Potton (2014) and Shanmugarajah et al (2012) reported that disfigured faces elicit disgust. It has been proposed that facial disfigurement is interpreted as a possible sign of disease and that the emotion of disgust functions to promote avoidance of an individual who may be contagious (e.g., Ackermann et al, 2009;Schaller & Neuberg, 2012).…”