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Emotional expressions forecast approach-avoidance behavior

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Abstract

The contention that basic behavioral intentions are forecasted by emotional expressions has received surprisingly little empirical support. We introduce a behavioral task that gauges the speed with which movement of angry and fearful faces (toward or away from an expressor's gaze) are accurately detected. In two studies we found that perceivers were faster to correctly detect approaching anger faces (i.e., faces that moved in the direction of their own gaze). The opposite, however, was not true for fear expressions. These findings offer evidence that, at least for anger displays, the basic behavioral intent to approach is strongly transmitted and at very low-levels of processing, even priming congruent behavioral responses in observers. The null results for fear faces may indicate that these signal a “freezing” response or behavioral inhibition rather than flight per se. The results of this work are discussed in relation to contemporary theories of emotion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, 438 Moore Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Reginald B. Adams Jr.

  2. Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, USA

    Nalini Ambady

  3. School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland

    C. Neil Macrae

  4. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA

    Robert E. Kleck

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  1. Reginald B. Adams Jr.
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  2. Nalini Ambady
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  3. C. Neil Macrae
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  4. Robert E. Kleck
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Correspondence to Reginald B. Adams Jr..

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Adams, R.B., Ambady, N., Macrae, C.N. et al. Emotional expressions forecast approach-avoidance behavior. Motiv Emot 30, 177–186 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9020-2

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