1. METHOD
Participants
There were 12 participants, 5 male and 7 female. Participants consisted of college
students who received 1 hour’s worth of research credit for compensation.
Materials and Design
• A video camera was used to record the participant’s facial expression
• Experimenters were trained using F.A.C.E. recognition as a way to code for data
Procedure
The measures in this experiment were to determine whether men or women
showed signs of anger, contempt, or disgust towards their romantic partner or rival.
Participants sat face to face with the experimenter and were video taped through the
interview, which lasted approximately 20-40 minutes.
Participants were told that they would be interviewed about a time when they
felt jealousy in a romantic situation, and that their interview would be videotaped.
After completing informed consent, participants were asked a serious of questions
such as “Okay, now I’d like you to think about your romantic rival. How did you
feel about them?” and “Who do you think was to blame for the jealousy incident?”
Participants were then given the chance to contribute additional information about
their jealousy experiences in an open-ended question. The videos were then
analyzed, and participants’ facial expressions were coded. Each participant was
coded three times by three different experiments to ensure internal validity.
RESULTS
Trained coders determined whether the participants expressed anger, contempt, or
disgust, and also determined whether the emotion had been expressed in relation to
the partner or the rival based on the video transcripts. A series of chi-square analyses
were run on the data to test differences between groups. Even when controlling for
differences in number of total men and women analyzed, women expressed
significantly more emotions when compared to men, χ²(1) = 31.84, p < .001). Men
and women expressed similar amounts of anger towards partners and rivals, χ²(1) =
0.01, p = .995), and anger was the most commonly reported emotion for both men
and women. However, men were more likely to express partner disgust, and women
were more likely to express partner contempt, χ²(1) =11.67, p < .001). There were
no significant differences between rival contempt and disgust χ²(1) =1.33, p = .249,
but non-significant trends suggest that women may be more likely to express rival
disgust compared to men. Results would suggest that there are gender differences in
terms of how men and women feel about their partners in jealousy situations.
Micro-Expressions in Jealousy:
Disgust, Anger, and Contempt Expressions towards Partners and Rivals
Caleb Gay
INTRODUCTION
Purpose of Research
The emotions and expressions of contempt,
anger, and disgust were measured to see if any
differences existed between rival and partner directed
emotions in situations of infidelity.
Background Research
• Most authors agree that romantic jealousy is aroused
by a perceived threat to a valued romantic
relationship generated by a real or imagined
attraction between the partner and a rival. This can
lead to behavior aimed at countering the threat
(Schützwohl 2008).
• Previous research has shown that men were more
aggressive towards partners while women were
more aggressive towards rivals in jealousy situations
(Schützwohl, 2008).
• People contort their face in certain ways to form
microexpressions that give insight into the way they
feel (Ekman, 1994).
• Contempt is felt when a person feels superior to
another person, while disgust is felt when a person
finds something or someone repulsive (Ekman
2003). Disgust can be felt toward both an object and
a person,while contempt can only be felt towards a
person, and research has found that disgust can be
dehumanizing (Harris & Fiske, 2006).
• When people feel jealous, they might be motivated
to express negative emotions such as anger, disgust,
and contempt. Furthermore, they may direct those
emotions towards partners or rivals depending on
the source of the perceived threat.
Hypothesis
I expected that female participants would express
more negative emotions toward their rivals while male
participants would express more negative emotions
toward their partners. I was also interested in seeing
whether the types of emotions expressed would differ.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of the study was to determine
whether there were gender differences in partner versus
rival emotional expressions. The preliminary findings of
this study show that romantic jealousy over a situation
of infidelity leads to high amounts of anger towards
both partners and rivals, as this was the most common
expression recorded for both genders. Females showed
more expressions of contempt, disgust, and anger than
males, which supports conventional wisdom that
females are more emotionally expressive than males.
Initial findings also indicated that men showed
more signs of disgust towards their partners than did
women, and women expressed more contempt towards
their partners than did men.
A possible follow-up study to this might explore
the stages of jealousy as it progresses from fear or
suspicion to confirmed infidelity. Another possible
experiment would be to test whether there was a
difference between emotions expressed over sexual
versus emotional infidelity.
These findings could be used to help couples
understand their emotional processes during couples
counseling. However, the participants studied were
college students, and therefore the findings may not be
generalizable to older individuals.
Author Contact: caleb.gay@bobcats.gcsu.edu
Special thanks to Francesca Altieri for assistance in preparing
this poster, and Janna Palmer, Justin Dickinson, and Kaitlyn
Sawyer for coding data.
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Partner
Contempt
Partner Disgust Rival Contempt Rival Disgust
Men
Women