Lecture � social psychology, expression and communication of affect

Greg Detre

5/5/00

 

big brain create new levels of complexity when dealing with others

cognitive adaptations to co-operation (Cosmides + Tooby, 1994)

sensitivity to cues indicating exchange is being offered

capacity to estimate CBA of various actions, entities, states of affairs for self

 

The Wason (1966) selection task, P Q

we haven't evolved to solve logical problems:

we�ve evolved to deal with people and social rules

Cosmides + Tooby

availability predicts vs social contract theory

 

We have language � why?

Prisoners� Dilemma � best = tit for tat (depends on whether iterated/remembered)

cheats can only operate in a large population

Swedish animal theorists (Enquist + Leimar)

what happens if gossip about the free rider?

chances to cheat

talk mostly about personal relationshiop

to analyse social behaviour, need to think about context and audience

most interactions = with friends or family

 

Sense modalities and channels of communication

visual auditory tactile chemical

speech/language

voice qualities (pitch, timing, intonation, stress, accent, tone)

eyes (gaze direction)

face

posture

gesture (not very British, as opposed to Italian)

appearance

space

smell (armpit hair to waft signals)

 

Why communicate non-verbally?

>1 thing at a time

advantages of �signs� for relatively stable attributes (appearance �/span> identity)

relative power of non-verbal signals

implicit nature of non-verbal signals (delicate negotiation)

problem of deception + relative reliability of non-verbal �evidence�

 

What is communicated non-verbally?

emotions/mood/affect

inter-personal attitudes (respect, superiority, boredom)

personality

social identity + status

role-switching in interaction

not big gaps or overlaps in conversation (gaze patterns, looking away, at each other for < 3 seconds)

 

Facial expression of feeling: issues

what range of emotional states can be expressed facially?

how is the face able to convey this information?

is the information conveyed reliable?

when does the face express feelings?

 

Johnson-Laird/Wason

dictionary: 590 feeling words

40 people posing emotions � observers could only distinguish 8

make systematic mistakes in recognition of emotion

 

Ekman � 6 or 7 facial expressions

unless we provide extra information

innate knowledge of how to make faces?

or is it an acquired convention/code?

if innate, why are they there?

Darwin 1872, Expression of emotions in man and animals

evolutionary origins of tears � lions eating children, eyes mist over not evolutionary advantage(???)

the principle of direction action of the nervous system

the principle of serviceable associated habits

e.g. disgust: bite/vomit

the principle of habits

fear = opposite of aggression

he didn't think that facial expression is adaptive (like male nipples)

 

Ekman principle claims:

6-7 basic emotions

connection between facial expression and emotions via facial affect programme

the expressions are innate and universals

any human can potentially recognise the emotional state of my others

(can't mix gestures + facial expressions � head nod in Bulgaria)

emotions are reactions to inter-personal events

\ involve interpretation, culturally-relative meanings

emotional expressions may be managed according to local display rules

 

most studies: decoding approach

Ekman showed that people are pretty good at recognising universal expression

but his samples came from cosmopolitan, city-dwelling samples

 

Questions

Moranine � hat stand superiority study

the problem with the face-emotion recognition studies is that there may be various dynamic, contextual, idiosyncratic cues that are missed out, plus the difficulty of pretending visible emotion