Beyond Social Categories: First Impressions of Personality from Faces Influence Emotion Perception.

Research demonstrates that a range of social contexts influence perception of emotion from faces. Initially, research focussed on social categories (e.g. race, sex, age, etc.) finding that certain expressions (e.g., happiness) were recognised with greater ease when expressed on certain faces (e.g., women). Beyond social categories, observers also infer personality attributes such as dominance and trustworthiness from the structure of faces. The current study aimed to investigate the influence of these facial attributes on the speed and accuracy of
emotion recognition. In Experiment 1 (N = 68), participants categorized happy and angry expressions on male faces high and low in dominance. In Experiments 2 (N = 147) and 3 (N = 147), participants categorized happiness and anger on faces high and low in trustworthiness. Poser gender was also manipulated. In Experiment 1, results demonstrated that anger was recognised faster than happiness on dominant, but not submissive faces. In Experiments 2 and 3, happiness was recognised faster than anger on faces high in trustworthiness, but not low in trustworthiness, but only when poser gender was not salient. Together, these results demonstrate that personality inferred from faces can influence the ease of recognising certain emotional expressions.