Facial Expression Predictions As Drivers Of Social Perception In Affective And Situational Priming

People perceive abundant social stimuli and receive various information from the external world in their social life.Therefore,people can understand others,predict their thoughts,judge their behaviors,and guide their own social behaviors in social interactions.Previous research provides some evidence that the top-down neural signal of prediction plays a role in social perception.It will constrain and direct our perception to a certain extent,and make people do more positive evaluations on the individuals whose expressions are consistent with their prediction.Although the Affect-as-Information Model and the Emotion As Social Information theory point out that people’s current emotional states and social context will also impact their subsequent conduct,the impact of facial expression prediction on social perception under them has remained largely unexplored.The study will be conducive to understanding the influencing factors of social perception more comprehensively and developing a harmonious interpersonal relationship.Experiment 1(N=38)adopted a 2(face match: matched,nonmatched)×3(face emotion category: fear,happy,sad)repeated measurement design to explore the influence of facial expression prediction on likability and trustworthiness in social perception.Results demonstrated that facial expression prediction affects social perception.Participants make more positive evaluations on the individuals whose expressions are consistent with their anticipate.Besides,people in real life usually have various emotions,and emotion also affects social perception.Based on it,experiment 2(N=72)adopted a 2(emotional states:positive,negative)×2(face match: matched,nonmatched)×3(face emotion category:fear,happy,sad)mixed experimental design to further studying how facial expression prediction affects social perception when participants’ positive and negative emotions are activated by watching videos.The results found that the impact of facial expression prediction on social perception will also be affected by people’s emotional state.Participants in a positive emotional state are usually inclined to make more positive evaluations.Positive emotions and predictable conditions have the highest social perception scores,while negative emotions and unpredictable conditions have the lowest social perception scores.Based on experiment 2,experiment 3(N=78)adopted a 2(situational prime:cooperative situation,competitive situation)×2(face match: matched,nonmatched)×3(face emotion category: fear,happy,sad)mixed experimental design to further studying how facial expression prediction affects social perception when participants’ different emotional states are priming through more realistic social situations.Results indicated that the impact of facial expression prediction on social perception will be also affected by the situation.Participants make more positive evaluations on others in a cooperative situation and make more negative evaluations on others in a competitive situation.The social perception scores under cooperative and predictable conditions are the highest,and the social perception scores under competitive and unpredictable conditions are the lowest.This study confirms that facial expression prediction affects social perception,and this effect is also affected by the individual’s current emotional state and social situation.The evaluation of social perception under the condition of predictable positive emotion/cooperative situation is more positive,and the evaluation of social perception under the condition of unpredictable negative emotion/competitive situation is more negative.