Interpersonal responses to facial expressions of disgust, anger, and happiness in individuals with varying levels of social anxiety

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Facial expression recognition has been studied
extensively, including in relation to social anxiety. Nonetheless, a limited number of
studies examined recognition of disgust expressions. Results suggest that disgust is
perceived as more threatening than anger, and thus may invite more extreme
responses. However, few studies have examined responses to facial expressions.
These studies have focused on approach-avoidance responses. Our primary aim was
to examine to what extent anger and disgust expressions might invite interpersonal
responses in terms of quarrelsomeness-agreeableness and dominancesubmissiveness.
As social anxiety has been previously associated with a heightened
sensitivity to anger and disgust expressions, as well as with alterations in
quarrelsomeness-agreeableness and dominance-submissiveness, our secondary aim
was to examine whether social anxiety would moderate these responses.
METHODS: Participants were 55 women and 43 men who completed social anxiety
measures, including the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation scale, and two tasks that
involved “targets” expressing anger, disgust, or happiness at 0%, 50%, or 100%.
Participants first indicated how quarrelsome or agreeable and how dominant or
submissive they would be towards each target, and then how much they would avoid
or approach each target.
RESULTS: While 100% disgust and anger expressions invited similar levels of
quarrelsomeness and avoidance, 50% disgust invited more quarrelsomeness and
stronger avoidance than 50% anger. While these patterns were not meaningfully
moderated by social anxiety, individuals with higher BFNE scores showed a relatively
strong approach of happy faces.
LIMITATIONS: Actual interpersonal behaviour in response to facial expressions was
not assessed.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the relevance of disgust as an interpersonal signal
and suggest that, especially at mild intensity, disgust may have a stronger impact than
anger on people’s quarrelsomeness and avoidance responses. Findings provided no
support for the view that people with social anxiety would be particularly responsive to
disgust (or anger) expressions.