Personality-linked biases in perception of emotional facial expressions

Personality-linked biases in perception of emotional facial expressions were investigated in a sample of 292 subjects aged 11 to 25 years who were presented with pictures of “angry”, “happy”, and “neutral” faces and were asked to rate each face in terms of its friendliness or hostility. The subjects also filled out a set of personality questionnaires. Behavioural Inhibition and trait anxiety predisposed to perception of all faces as more hostile. Similar effects were observed for BAS, anger, physical aggression, hostility and verbal aggression but in these cases the effect was only related to perception of female faces. Intellect, agreeableness and conscientiousness predisposed to perception of all faces as more friendly. For extraversion the same effect was significant only for “happy” faces. These findings show that personality may systematically influence the way people perceive facial expressions of other people. Specifically, anxiety and aggressiveness may predispose to exaggerate hostile intentions in other people. That may have an impact on everyday interpersonal relationships.