The contempt expression and the relativity thesis

Ekman and Freisen (1986) reported a highly recognizable, pancultural facial expression unique to contempt. This article reports three studies in which the emotion inferred from that expression, a unilaterally raised and tightened lip, varied with the context of judgment. Different contexts of judgment were created by asking subjects to judge zero, one, or six other facial expressions posed by different actors before judging the lip curl. The lip curl was labeledcontempt in one context,disgust in another, andsadness in a third. Ekman and Friesen's result was replicated, but only when the specific anchoring context used in the original studies was reinstituted. People's judgments as to which emotion is conveyed by a particular facial expression can therefore be influenced by the method of gathering judgments.

[1]  A. Manstead,et al.  A contrast effect in judgments of own emotional state , 1983 .

[2]  H. Schlosberg.  The description of facial expressions in terms of two dimensions. , 1952, Journal of experimental psychology.

[3]  J. Bruner.  On perceptual readiness. , 1957, Psychological review.

[4]  H. Scholsberg.  A scale for the judgment of facial expressions. , 1941 .

[5]  H. Helson,et al.  Adaptation-level theory , 1964 .

[6]  James A. Russell,et al.  Adaptation level and the affective appraisal of environments , 1984 .

[7]  M. Cline.  The influence of social context on the perception of faces. , 1956, Journal of personality.

[8]  Paul Ekman,et al.  The universality of a contempt expression: A replication , 1988 .

[9]  P. Brickman.  Adaptation level determinants of satisfaction with equal and unequal outcome distributions in skill and chance situations. , 1975 .

[10]  S. Tomkins,et al.  What and Where are the Primary Affects? Some Evidence for a Theory , 1964, Perceptual and motor skills.

[11]  J. Bowlby.  Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect. , 1969, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[12]  P. Ekman.  Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion. , 1972 .

[13]  P. Ekman,et al.  Facial action coding system: a technique for the measurement of facial movement , 1978 .

[14]  R. Klorman.  Habituation of fear: effects of intensity and stimulus order. , 1974 .

[15]  J. Russell,et al.  Fuzzy Concepts and the Perception of Emotion in Facial Expressions , 1986 .

[16]  W. A. Hunt,et al.  The Anchoring of an Affective Scale , 1937 .

[17]  P. Brickman,et al.  Lottery winners and accident victims: is happiness relative? , 1978, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  P. Ekman,et al.  Who knows what about contempt: A reply to Izard and Haynes , 1988 .

[19]  Melvin Manis,et al.  Contrast Effects In Verbal Output , 1971 .

[20]  H. Schlosberg,et al.  Woodworth scale values of the Lightfoot pictures of facial expression. , 1960, Journal of experimental psychology.

[21]  M. Manis,et al.  Context effects in communication. , 1967, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[22]  C. Izard,et al.  On the form and universality of the contempt expression: A challenge to Ekman and Friesen's claim of discovery , 1988 .

[23]  J. Frois-Wittman,et al.  The judgment of facial expression , 1930 .

[24]  P. Ekman,et al.  DIFFERENCES Universals and Cultural Differences in the Judgments of Facial Expressions of Emotion , 2004 .

[25]  P. Ekman.  The face of man : expressions of universal emotions in a New Guinea village , 1981 .

[26]  C. Izard.  The face of emotion , 1971 .

[27]  M. Manis,et al.  Response vs. Perception , 1978 .

[28]  P. Ekman,et al.  Pan-Cultural Elements in Facial Displays of Emotion , 1969, Science.

[29]  P. Ekman,et al.  The role of context in interpreting facial expression: comment on Russell and Fehr (1987). , 1988, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[30]  James A. Russell,et al.  "The role of context in interpreting facial expression:" Reply to Ekman and O'Sullivan , 1988 .

[31]  W. S. Rholes,et al.  Category accessibility and impression formation , 1977 .

[32]  P. Ekman.  Pictures of Facial Affect , 1976 .

[33]  A. Parducci.  The relativism of absolute judgements. , 1968, Scientific American.

[34]  E. Krupat.  Context as a determinant of perceived threat: The role of prior experience. , 1974 .

[35]  P. Ekman,et al.  A new pan-cultural facial expression of emotion , 1986 .

[36]  A. Parducci.  Category judgment: a range-frequency model. , 1965, Psychological review.

[37]  Ross Buck,et al.  The communication of emotion , 1984 .

[38]  C. Darwin.  The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , .

[39]  M. Dermer,et al.  Evaluative judgments of aspects of life as a function of vicarious exposure to hedonic extremes. , 1979 .

[40]  S. Thayer.  The effect of expression sequence and expressor identity on judgments of the intensity of facial expression , 1980 .

[41]  Antoinette M. Feleky.  The expression of the emotions. , 1914 .

[42]  N. Cohen.  The Relativity of Absolute Judgments , 1937 .

[43]  T. Field,et al.  Discrimination and imitation of facial expression by neonates. , 1982, Science.

[44]  J. Russell,et al.  Relativity in the Perception of Emotion in Facial Expressions , 1987 .

[45]  J. Bruner,et al.  THE PERCEPTION OF PEOPLE , 1954 .