engleski

Facial emotion recognition in violent men: The role of female expression of disgust in sexual coercion

The objective was to test several hypotheses by exploring the ability of violent men to recognize facial affect. According to social learning theory and evolutionary hypothesis, sadness, fear and disgust were expected to be recognized with higher accuracy on female than male faces, while the opposite effect was expected for angry faces. Considering different types of violent behavior, sexual coercion perpetrators were expected to either have an impaired ability to recognize female disgust, since disgust has a function to decrease sexual arousal, or to be more sensitive to female disgust than violent men without a history of sexual coercion, because female facial disgust can be interpreted as a cue of infidelity. The participants were 71 married or cohabiting couples who were attending treatment at a Social Welfare Centre. All male participants exhibited some sort of violent behavior towards their partner. To avoid social desirability bias, Revised Conflict Tactic Scale was administered to females, while males were requested to complete the emotion recognition test. Violent men recognized facial expressions of fear and disgust more accurately when displayed by female than male models. The opposite was found for angry faces, whilst the models’ sex did not affect the recognition of sad, happy and surprised facial expressions nor neutral faces. Furthermore, perpetrators of sexual coercion were more accurate than other violent men in the recognition of female facial disgust. We propose that by expressing disgust towards their partner, women signal their low mate value and the availability of alternative men with a higher mate value. Therefore, female facial expressions of disgust could be subtle cues to sexual infidelity that motivate sexual coercion in some men.

facial affect ; sexual coercion ; violent behavior ; disgust

This research was supported by the University of Rijeka grant as a part of the research project: Personality, emotions and social processes as determinants of health outcomes (13.04.1.2.01).