Encoding and decoding of nonverbal affect in humans.

Abstract

Twelve college-age males viewed a sequence of equally spaced and randomly ordered red and green lights, in which the red light signaled the advent of shock. Continuous skin-resistance measures were taken. Subjects' nonverbal responses to the red and green stimuli were video taped without their knowledge and were later viewed by themselves and five of the other subjects, individually, under conditions which required them to discriminate between shock and nonshock trials. The subjects' accuracy scores were above chance levels, and significant differences in error rates for stimulus persons but not for judges were found. Subjects who were proficient at the discrimination task were themselves poor stimuli for others and vice versa. The degree of physiological reactivity of the subjects was positively associated with the number of errors made to them as stimuli, but negatively related to their error scores as judges. A number of alternative explanations for this last result are discussed, and several suggestions for future research are made.It is now clearly established (e.g., Davitz, 1964b; Frijda, 1969) that information relevant to the affective state of one individual can be communicated to another via nonverbal behaviors. Facial expressions, for example, whether spontaneously emitted in the presence of emotionally loaded stimuli (Frijda, 1953; Munn, 1940) or posed in response to emotion-simulating instructions (Felcky, 1922), have been consistently found to accurately communicate feeling states, though the level of observed accuracy differs from study to study (Ekman, Friesen, & P^llsworth, f970). In the course of this research, individuals have been found to differ both in their ability to encode or display affective states, which can be recognized by others, and in their ability to decode or interpret the nonverbal displays of others. While these individual differences, particularly as they apply to the decoding process, have been examined in terms of the personality and cognitive factors associated with them (cf. Davitz, 1964a),

A Perceptual-Motor Processing Model of Emotion

“…First, there is the suggestion and evidence initially proposed by Jones (1935Jones ( , 1950 that expressiveness is negatively related to affective intensity, i.e., the more a person manifests expressive motor changes in emotionally provocative situations, the less he or she will manifest autonomic system changes (equated by Jones as a sign of emotional reactivity). Lanzetta and Kleck (1970) reported data that appeared to support the negative association of expressiveness and feeling when they examined individual differences in expressiveness and autonomic reactivity to threat of shock; subjects whose expressions were indistinct and difficult to judge (presumably less overtly reactive) showed the strongest skin conductance changes.…”

Self-control as a limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns.

“…For example, regulating one's emotions, due to either stable individual differences in emotional expression or specific instructions to control one's emotions, is arousing (Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989;Gross & Levenson, 1993;Pennebaker, 1985). Inhibiting one's facial expression of emotion or pain also results in increased arousal (Lanzetta & Kleck, 1970;Notarius, Wemple, Ingraham, Bums, & Kollar, 1982). Additionally, research has shown that holding anger in or regulating its expression leads to physiological arousal, such as increased blood pressure, a faster pulse, and decreased skin conductance (Rinkenstein, King, & Drolette, 1954;Haynes, Feinlieb, & Kannel, 1980;Holroyd & Gorkin, 1983;MacDougall, Dembroski, & Krantz, 1981;Schalling, 1985).…”

Nonverbal and Verbal Emotional Expression and Health

“…Inter nalizers and externalizers are further charac terized by different patterns of physiological response. In particular, internalizers show higher levels of skin conductance than do externalizers when exposed to emotionally charged stimuli [21,22], Internalizers also show increases in heart rate under these con ditions, whereas externalizers do not [1], A number of studies suggest that the heightened autonomic responses of intemalizers may reflect the work of behavioral inhi bition. Specifically, internalizers work to ac tively suppress emotional expression.…”