Judging Others' Emotions as a Function of the Others' Status

These studies addressed expectancies concerning the emotion-eliciting conditions experienced by individuals of differing status, the emotions experienced and displayed by these individuals, and the norms dictating their display of emotions. As expected, participants in Study 1 judged low-status relative to high-status individuals as (1) more likely to experience elicitors of anger, disgust, sadness, and fear, (2) less likely to experience elicitors of happiness, and (3) generally equally likely to experience elicitors of love. In agreement with Study 1, participants in Study 2 perceived low-status relative to high-status individuals as experiencing (1) more anger, sadness, and fear, (2) less happiness, and (3) similar levels of love. Participants in Study 2 also perceived low-status relative to high-status individuals as displaying less anger and disgust, more sadness and fear less happiness, and similar levels of love. Findings of Study 3 indicate that the perceived discrepancy between experience and display for both anger and disgust in Study 2 reflects people's beliefs regarding norms of emotional expression.