Affective responses to emotional expressions critically depend on the expresser’s group membership: Facial displays by in-group members elicit concordant affective behavior in the perceiver whereas out-group expressions elicit discordant behavior. A prominent explanation for this response divergence assumes that initial affective responses are elicited by the social message signaled by facial displays (social intentions account). In this study we tested an alternative account, proposing that specific combinations of group membership and facial expression (i.e., positive expressions by negatively evaluated out-group members or negative expressions by positively evaluated in-group members) result in affective conflict (processing conflict account). In 4 experiments White participants executed simple 2-choice categorization tasks on pictures of emotions expressed by Middle-Eastern (out-group) or White persons (in-group). We observed consistent performance decrements to affectively incongruent compared with congruent faces. Moreover, consistent with the processing conflict account, experienced conflict from affectively incongruent faces reactively induces recruitment of cognitive control resources. Conflict adaptation effects occurred (a) irrespective of the type of conflict and (b) also for emotional facial expressions for which the underlying social message does not vary with group membership. In summary, these results substantiate the processing conflict hypothesis. Consequences for the prominent social intentions account are discussed.

Several emotion theorists suggest that valenced stimuli automatically trigger motivational orientations and thereby facilitate corresponding behavior. Positive stimuli were thought to activate approach motivational circuits which in turn primed approach-related behavioral tendencies whereas negative stimuli were supposed to activate avoidance motivational circuits so that avoidance-related behavioral tendencies were primed (motivational orientation account). However, recent research suggests that typically observed affective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena might be entirely explained in terms of theories accounting for mechanisms of general action control instead of assuming motivational orientations to mediate the effects (evaluative coding account). In what follows, we explore to what extent this notion is applicable. We present literature suggesting that evaluative coding mechanisms indeed influence a wide variety of affective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena. However, the evaluative coding account does not seem to be sufficient to explain affective S–R compatibility effects. Instead, several studies provide clear evidence in favor of the motivational orientation account that seems to operate independently of evaluative coding mechanisms. Implications for theoretical developments and future research designs are discussed.

Recently, it has been shown that the activation of affect-induced emotional reactions (i.e., manual approach/avoidance movements) can be modulated by strategic practice. The present study explored whether this modulation would also apply to affect-induced facial muscle contractions, which have been discussed to be relatively inflexibly linked to the processing of affective stimuli. In 2 experiments, participants conducted 2 different categorization tasks on positive and negative pictures of facial expressions (Experiment 1) or emotional scenes (Experiment 2) which were randomly framed in different colors. Black frames signaled to conduct an affective categorization which had to be executed either with a congruent or incongruent stimulus-response (S-R) mapping. Green or blue frames signaled to conduct a color classification (i.e., affective Simon task). Importantly, significant reductions of the affective Simon effect (that is, faster/more accurate positive [negative] responses to positive [negative] stimuli when categorizing a nonvalence stimulus feature) occurring after practice of incongruent (as compared with congruent) S-R mappings were observed for both manual and facial emotional responses. Importantly, the associative strength of long-term links does not limit the controllability of emotional responses through strategic practice. Thus, these results highlight the importance of practice as an effective means to even regulate facial muscle contractions. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Letters have a position in the alphabet and they have a position on standard personal computer keyboards. The present study explored the consequences of compatibility between spatial codes representing letter position in the alphabet and on the keyboard. In Experiment 1, participants responded faster to letter dyads in an alphabetic order judgment task, when the letters' alphabetical order matched their left to right order on the keyboard. In Experiment 2, compatible dyads were typed more quickly than incompatible dyads. Finally, in Experiments 3 and 4, letter dyads with compatible alphabetical and keyboard sequences of letters were more preferred than dyads with incompatible orders. Together, these results suggest that the perception of letters concurrently activates 2 representations of ordinal sequences. Compatibility between these representations enhances performance as well as affective evaluations. Limitations of this alphabet-keyboard compatibility effect as well as implications for the development of formal typing courses and computer keyboard design are discussed.