ABSTRACT Although research succeeds in eliciting spontaneous feelings of surprise with participan... more ABSTRACT Although research succeeds in eliciting spontaneous feelings of surprise with participants, these participants rarely show a prototypical expression of raising eyebrows, opening mouth, and widening eyes. In other words, there seems to be a discrepancy between the display and feeling of surprise. To get a better understanding of this discrepancy, we assessed what factors influence the display of surprise in children (study 1) and adults (study 2). In both studies, we conducted a quiz-like experiment, in which we manipulated the social context (participants either competed or collaborated), and various quiz questions to extract reactions of surprise (either caused by unexpectedly correct or unexpectedly incorrect answers). Results show that cause and social context did not affect the appearance of specific features in participants’ surprise display. However, we did find these factors to interact with regards to the intensity of perceived surprise displays of adults. For children, these relations were less complex. Overall, we can conclude that the expression of surprise is indeed moderated by contextual factors, namely cause of the surprise, social context, and age.
Although current emotion theories emphasize the importance of contextual factors for emotional ex... more Although current emotion theories emphasize the importance of contextual factors for emotional expressive behavior, developmental studies that examine such factors are currently thin on the ground. In this research, we studied the course of emotional expressions of 8-and 11-year-old children after winning a (large) first prize or a (substantially smaller) consolation prize, while playing a game competing against the computer or a physically co-present peer. We analyzed their emotional reactions by conducting two perception tests in which participants rated children's level of happiness. Results showed that co-presence positively affected children's happiness only when receiving the first prize. Moreover, for children who were in the presence of a peer, we found that eye contact affected children's expressions of happiness, but that the effect was different for different age groups: 8-year-old children were negatively affected, and 11-year-old children positively. Overall, we can conclude that as children grow older and their social awareness increases, the presence of a peer affects their non-verbal expressions, regardless of their appreciation of their prize.
ABSTRACT Although research succeeds in eliciting spontaneous feelings of surprise with participan... more ABSTRACT Although research succeeds in eliciting spontaneous feelings of surprise with participants, these participants rarely show a prototypical expression of raising eyebrows, opening mouth, and widening eyes. In other words, there seems to be a discrepancy between the display and feeling of surprise. To get a better understanding of this discrepancy, we assessed what factors influence the display of surprise in children (study 1) and adults (study 2). In both studies, we conducted a quiz-like experiment, in which we manipulated the social context (participants either competed or collaborated), and various quiz questions to extract reactions of surprise (either caused by unexpectedly correct or unexpectedly incorrect answers). Results show that cause and social context did not affect the appearance of specific features in participants’ surprise display. However, we did find these factors to interact with regards to the intensity of perceived surprise displays of adults. For children, these relations were less complex. Overall, we can conclude that the expression of surprise is indeed moderated by contextual factors, namely cause of the surprise, social context, and age.
Although current emotion theories emphasize the importance of contextual factors for emotional ex... more Although current emotion theories emphasize the importance of contextual factors for emotional expressive behavior, developmental studies that examine such factors are currently thin on the ground. In this research, we studied the course of emotional expressions of 8-and 11-year-old children after winning a (large) first prize or a (substantially smaller) consolation prize, while playing a game competing against the computer or a physically co-present peer. We analyzed their emotional reactions by conducting two perception tests in which participants rated children's level of happiness. Results showed that co-presence positively affected children's happiness only when receiving the first prize. Moreover, for children who were in the presence of a peer, we found that eye contact affected children's expressions of happiness, but that the effect was different for different age groups: 8-year-old children were negatively affected, and 11-year-old children positively. Overall, we can conclude that as children grow older and their social awareness increases, the presence of a peer affects their non-verbal expressions, regardless of their appreciation of their prize.
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