The effects of verbal statements of context on facial expressions of emotion

Abstract

To determine the effect of combining verbal statements of context with facial expressions of emotions, 98 college students rated still photographs of emotion, shown alone and paired with congruent and incongruent descriptions of context. The results of the study indicate that agreement on the meaning of photographs of emotion can: (1) change significantly with the addition of congruent vs. incongruent statements of context, (2) be affected by sex of the stimulus person, though a definite pattern was not observed, and (3) vary across emotion categories. It is suggested that the message value inherent in social contexts be given careful consideration in future studies.