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Emotion in the resting face: Taking sides. A reply to McGee & Skinner (1987)
Author(s) -
Rhodes Gillian,
Lynskey Michael
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1989.tb00869.x
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , facial expression , expression (computer science) , face (sociological concept) , emotional expression , social psychology , cognitive psychology , communication , linguistics , philosophy , computer science , programming language
McGee & Skinner (1987) reported greater attribution of emotion adjectives to resting left than right hemifaces, which they interpreted as evidence for asymmetric expression of emotion in resting faces. However, their emotion adjectives did not describe facial expressions of emotion. We attempted to replicate their result and to relate it to asymmetries in the attribution of facial expression descriptors. We failed to replicate their result for Caucasian faces displaying neutral (resting) expressions, although this result was obtained for Chinese faces displaying a variety of expressions. The asymmetric attribution of emotion and neutral adjectives to left and right Chinese hemifaces was not, however, associated with asymmetries in the attribution of facial expression descriptors. Nor were facial expression descriptors asymmetrically attributed to left and right hemifaces of neutral Caucasian faces.