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Facial blushing influences perceived embarrassment and related social functional evaluations

Thorstenson, C.; Pazda, A.; Lichtenfeld, S.

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Authors

C. Thorstenson

A. Pazda



Abstract

Facial blushing involves a reddening of the face elicited in situations involving unwanted social attention. Such situations include being caught committing a social transgression, which is typically considered embarrassing. While recent research has demonstrated that facial redness can influence social evaluations, including emotional states such as perceived anger, the influence of blushing on social perceptions related to embarrassment or social transgression has yet to be investigated. Across three experiments, we manipulated the redness of neutral faces (Exp. 1) and faces displaying different emotional expressions (Exps. 2 and 3), and had participants evaluate perceived embarrassment, apology sincerity, and likeliness to forgive a transgression for each set of stimuli. Results indicated that redder (relative to baseline) faces influenced perceived embarrassment, apology sincerity, and likeliness to forgive a transgression. We discuss the implications in the context of a social functional account of facial color in emotion expression and perception.

Citation

Thorstenson, C., Pazda, A., & Lichtenfeld, S. (2020). Facial blushing influences perceived embarrassment and related social functional evaluations. Cognition and Emotion, 34(3), 413-426. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1634004

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 12, 2019
Online Publication Date Jun 23, 2019
Publication Date 2020
Deposit Date Jul 4, 2019
Publicly Available Date Jun 23, 2020
Journal Cognition and Emotion
Print ISSN 0269-9931
Electronic ISSN 1464-0600
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 34
Issue 3
Pages 413-426
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1634004
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1292916

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