Trait Judgements and Gender Differences of Multimodal Emotional Cues

Abstract

Judgements of certain traits have been linked with certain emotional expressions, such that trustworthiness is linked with happy expressions and dominance with anger. There are also differences in trait judgements made of male and female posers. Studies into trait judgement often use isolated facial expressions. Few studies have examined judgement in context with body movement and vocalisations. This study aims to examine the influence of multiple cues on trait judgements. Participants (N=158) judged the trustworthiness and dominance of multimodal expressions. Videoclips contained either congruent emotional expressions (all cues expressing the same emotion) or incongruent expressions (two cues expressing same emotion, one cue expressing a different emotion). Main analyses were conducted by examining emotions that were the majority emotion (two cues showed the same emotion) or the minority emotion (only one cue showed the emotion). As predicted, expressions that showed mostly happiness were rated high on trustworthiness and expressions showing mostly anger were rated as high on dominance. Additionally, there were significant gender differences. As predicted, the female actor was rated higher on trustworthiness, however the female actor was also rated higher on dominance, when literature typically finds males as higher on dominance. Results for minority cue judgement were not consistent with previous research into emotional perception of multimodal cues. This suggests that the cues that people use when judging traits are different then when evaluating emotion. Overall, results suggest that the addition of multiple cues influences the trait judgements people make.