ABSTRACT

Perceptions of others’ social characteristics are essential for guiding social behaviour and decision making. Recent research has demonstrated that increased facial redness facilitates both positive (e.g. health, attractiveness, happiness) and negative (e.g. dominance, anger) social evaluations. Given that similar facial colouration can lead to diverging evaluations, it is unclear how people integrate these cues to inform social decisions (e.g. approach-avoidance). We suggest that the influence of facial redness on social perceptions and decisions depends on contextual information, including facial-muscular emotion expressions. We test this hypothesis across two studies where participants view faces either increasing or decreasing redness, evaluate them on a range of social characteristics (i.e. aggressiveness, attractiveness, health, friendliness, dominance) and decide whether to approach or avoid them. Increased facial redness facilitated, and decreased redness impeded (to a greater extent), perceptions of each social characteristic. However, the extent of this influence was moderated by the muscular expression (i.e. neutral, happy, angry). Further, we found that the influence of facial redness on approach-avoidance was largely mediated by evaluations of attractiveness and health. Altogether, the current work provides nuanced insights into facial colouration’s role as a social signal that informs social perception and decision making.

摘要

对他人社会特征的认知对于指导社会行为和决策至关重要。最近的研究表明，面部发红的增加会促进积极（例如健康、吸引力、幸福）和消极（例如支配、愤怒）的社会评价。鉴于相似的面部颜色会导致不同的评估，目前尚不清楚人们如何整合这些线索以告知社会决策（例如避免接近）。我们建议面部发红对社会感知和决策的影响取决于上下文信息，包括面部肌肉情绪表达。我们在两项研究中检验了这一假设，其中参与者认为面部发红是增加还是减少，并根据一系列社会特征（即攻击性、吸引力、健康、友善、优势）并决定是接近还是避开它们。面部发红的增加促进了对每个社会特征的感知，而发红的减少则阻碍了（在更大程度上）对每个社会特征的感知。然而，这种影响的程度受到肌肉表情（即中立、快乐、愤怒）的影响。此外，我们发现面部发红对接近回避的影响主要是通过对吸引力和健康的评估来调节的。总而言之，目前的工作提供了对面部颜色作为影响社会感知和决策的社会信号的作用的细致入微的见解。这种影响的程度受肌肉表情（即中立、快乐、愤怒）的影响。此外，我们发现面部发红对接近回避的影响主要是通过对吸引力和健康的评估来调节的。总而言之，目前的工作提供了对面部颜色作为影响社会感知和决策的社会信号的作用的细致入微的见解。这种影响的程度受肌肉表情（即中立、快乐、愤怒）的影响。此外，我们发现面部发红对接近回避的影响主要是通过对吸引力和健康的评估来调节的。总而言之，目前的工作提供了对面部颜色作为影响社会感知和决策的社会信号的作用的细致入微的见解。