Negative emotion and perceived social class.

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Nonverbal Communication
• Stereotype Research

Background:

• Stereotypes link wealth with happiness, influencing social class perceptions.
• Previous research indicates neutral faces of wealthier individuals display more positive affect.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether perceivers use broad valence differences or specific emotions when judging social class from faces.
• To examine the influence of four negatively valenced emotions (sadness, anger, disgust, fear) on social class perception.

Main Methods:

• Participants categorized faces displaying neutral, sad, angry, disgusted, or fearful expressions based on perceived social class.
• The study analyzed how different emotional expressions influenced categorizations of "poor," "working class," or "rich."

Main Results:

• Targets expressing sadness and anger were more often categorized as lower class compared to neutral targets.
• Targets expressing disgust and fear were also perceived as lower class than neutral targets.
• Findings suggest perceivers rely on the negative valence of emotions rather than specific emotional content to infer social class.

Conclusions:

• Perceptions of social class from faces are driven by broad valence differences, not specific emotions.
• The association of lower social class with negative states and higher social class with positive states influences face-based impressions.