The Communicative Function of Sad Facial Expressions:

Evolutionary Psychology

Lawrence Ian Reed¹ 

关键词: facial expression;    sad;    signaling;    game theory;    emotion;   

DOI  :  10.1177/1474704917700418

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

What are the communicative functions of sad facial expressions? Research shows that people feel sadness in response to losses but it’s unclear whether sad expressions function to communicate losses to others and if so, what makes these signals credible. Here we use economic games to test the hypothesis that sad expressions lend credibility to claims of loss. Participants play the role of either a proposer or recipient in a game with a fictional backstory and real monetary payoffs. The proposers view a (fictional) video of the recipient’s character displaying either a neutral or sad expression paired with a claim of loss. The proposer then decided how much money to give to the recipient. In three experiments, we test alternative theories by using situations in which the recipient’s losses were uncertain (Experiment 1), the recipient’s losses were certain (Experiment 2), or the recipient claims failed gains rather than losses (Experiment 3). Overall, we find that participants gave more money to recipients who displayed sad expressions compared to neutral expressions, but only under conditions of uncertain loss. This finding supports the hypothesis that sad expressions function to increase the credibility of claims of loss.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC