Prior Exposure to others Shapes Interpretations of Emotional Facial Expressions

How we interpret emotional facial expressions is context-dependent. We argue that such context extends to prior exposure to the emotional reactions of multiple others. We tested whether exposure to different patterns of emotional reactions of others leads to different interpretations of subsequent facial expressions. Participants were exposed to sequential self-reported ratings of either more or less intense emotional reactions of others to sad images (vs. disgusting or happy images, in Studies 1 and 2, respectively). Exposure to consistent emotional patterns in the social environment led people to interpret unrelated emotional information in a similar way. Specifically, individuals consistently exposed to more (vs. less) intense self-reported sadness of others interpreted morphed facial expressions of sadness (but not happiness) as more intense. Thus, what we see in others' faces may depend on the emotional information we have been previously exposed to in our social environment.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-025-00345-6.