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Effects of Activated and Dispositional Self-Construal on Emotion Decoding Accuracy

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Abstract

The present study examined effects of temporarily salient and chronic self-construal on decoding accuracy for positive and negative facial expressions of emotion. We primed independent and interdependent self-construal in a sample of participants who then rated the emotion expressions of a central character (target) in a cartoon showing a happy, sad, angry, or neutral facial expression in a group setting. Primed interdependence was associated with lower recognition accuracy for negative emotion expressions. Primed and chronic self-construal interacted such that for interdependence primed participants, higher chronic interdependence was associated with lower decoding accuracy for negative emotion expressions. Chronic independent self-construal was associated with higher decoding accuracy for negative emotion. These findings add to an increasing literature that highlights the significance of perceivers’ socio-cultural factors, self-construal in particular, for emotion perception.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank G. Dimitraki, C. Tsiligiri, Th. Theodosiou, S. Chalaris for help with collecting the data. The research was supported by a joint Grant to Prof. K. Kafetsios and Prof. U. Hess by the Hellenic Scholarships Foundation and DAAD [IKYDA No168].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Crete, 74100, Rethymon, Greece

    Konstantinos Kafetsios

  2. Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Ursula Hess

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  1. Konstantinos Kafetsios
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  2. Ursula Hess
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Correspondence to Konstantinos Kafetsios.

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Kafetsios, K., Hess, U. Effects of Activated and Dispositional Self-Construal on Emotion Decoding Accuracy. J Nonverbal Behav 37, 191–205 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-013-0149-x

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