eff of subliminal anger and sadness

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The Effects of Subliminal Anger and Sadness Primeson Agency Appraisals

Zixu Yang and Eddie M. W. TongNational University of Singapore

Two studies examined whether appraisals can be differentially affected by subliminal anger and sadness

primes. Participants from Singapore (Experiment 1) and China (Experiment 2) were exposed to either

subliminal angry faces or subliminal sad faces. Supporting appraisal theories of emotions, participants

exposed to subliminal angry faces were more likely to appraise negative events as caused by other people

and those exposed to subliminal sad faces were more likely to appraise the same events as caused by

situational factors. The results provide the first evidence for subliminal emotion-specific cognitive

effects. They show that cognitive functions such as appraisals can be affected by subliminal emotional

stimuli of the same valence.

Keywords: emotion, agency appraisals, subliminal, anger, sadness

An effective emotional system should be efficient enough to

elicit responses tailored to specific emotional stimuli, even if these

stimuli are not available to conscious awareness (Lazarus, 1991;

Winkielman & Berridge, 2004; Zajonc, 1980). This functional

perspective implies that distinctive cognitive functions (e.g., ap-

praisals, stereotyping, and persuasion) can be activated by sublim-

inal stimuli associated with specific emotions. Support for sublim-

inal emotion-specific cognitive effects would have to meet at least

two requirements. First, it has to show that distinctive cognitive

responses can be activated by subliminal primes. Second, it has to

demonstrate emotion-specific effects, not simply valence-based

effects. However, past studies have found support for each require-

ment but never both together, and convincing evidence for sub-

liminal emotion-specific cognitive effects remained elusive.

With regard to the first requirement, research has established

that cognitive functions can be affected by subliminal emotional

primes (e.g., Ferguson, Bargh, & Nayak, 2005; Murphy & Zajonc,

1993; Stapel, Koomen, & Ruys, 2002). However, what these

studies found were effects based on valence and not necessarily

effects based on specific emotions. Further, studies are beginning

to show that the cognitive effects of different emotions are better

understood from their approach-withdrawal distinction (e.g.,

Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2004; Lerner & Keltner,

2001) and that asymmetric prefrontal activation should reflect such

motivational differences rather than valence as previously thought

(Davidson, 2003; Harmon-Jones, 2003). This suggests that theadaptive significance of emotions might lie more in their

approach-withdrawal motivational function than in their subjective

valence.

With regard to the second requirement, past studies have also

shown that conscious emotions of the same valence can elicit

distinctive cognitive effects (e.g., Bodenhausen, Sheppard, &

Kramer, 1994; DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000; Keltner,

Ellsworth, & Edwards, 1993; Tiedens & Linton, 2001). However,

these studies did not examine subliminal effects because they used

conscious emotion-induction methods (e.g., recall, vignette, mu-

sic) in which participants could be aware of the origins of their

responses. In addition, the participants in these studies largely

reported moderate to strong emotional feelings. However, sublim-

inal emotion-specific cognitive effects should occur in the absence

of strong emotional feelings because subliminal emotional primesgenerally do not elicit consciously felt emotional experiences

(Ruys & Stapel, 2008; Zemack-Rugar, Bettman, & Fitzsimons,

2007).

Our objective was to provide the first evidence for subliminal

emotion-specific cognitive effects, focusing on appraisals as our

cognitive process of interest. According to appraisal theories,

events can be appraised along a set of appraisal dimensions such as

the extent to which they are harmful to well-being and who or what

caused them. Arnold (1960) defined appraisals as “direct, imme-

diate,͓ and͔ intuitive,” implying that appraisals can be activated

automatically. Subsequent theorists have posited that appraisals

can be activated by priming and associative processes (Clore &

Ortony, 2000; Leventhal & Scherer, 1987; Smith & Kirby, 2000)

and recent studies have also indicated that simple appraisals suchas motivational congruence can be computed in automatic manners

(Moors & De Houwer, 2001; Moors, De Houwer, & Eelen, 2004).

Appraisal theories posit that each emotion can be elicited by a

specific pattern of appraisals. For example, anger can be provoked

when an undesirable event is appraised as caused by other people

(Agency-Others) and sadness can result when the same event is

appraised as caused by uncontrollable circumstances (Agency-

Situation; Lazarus, 1991; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Rose-

man, 1984; Scherer, 1984; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). The reverse

is also true in that emotions can influence evaluation of subsequent

events through their associated appraisals (Keltner et al., 1993).

This article was published Online First November 8, 2010.

Zixu Yang and Eddie M. W. Tong, Department of Psychology, National

University of Singapore.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eddie

M. W. Tong, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, National

University of Singapore, 9 Arts Link, AS4 02-09, Singapore 117570. E-mail:

[email protected]

Emotion © 2010 American Psychological Association2010, Vol. 10, No. 6, 915–922 1528-3542/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0020306

915



Importantly, because appraisal theories postulate fine differences

in appraisals between individual emotions, they predict that the

appraisal tendency consequent of an emotion is richer than a

simple valence-based evaluation as it also incorporates other ap-

praisals (e.g., Agency). Hence, an angry person is more likely than

a sad person to appraise events as caused by other people and a sad

person is more likely than an angry person to appraise them ascaused by situational factors, even though both are as likely as

each other to appraise events negatively.

Supporting this view, Keltner et al. (1993) found that, relative

to sad participants, angry participants were indeed more likely to

attribute negative events to other people and were less likely to

attribute them to situational factors (see also, Lerner & Keltner,

2001). However, these studies employed conscious emotion-

induction techniques and it was thus never clear whether the same

effects could be subliminally activated. In fact, this problem is

emblematic of appraisal research in general. Except for a small

number of studies (Moors & De Houwer, 2001; Moors et al.,

2004), almost all appraisal studies employed methods (e.g.,

vignette and recall) that deny the study of automatic appraisal-

emotion processes that appraisal theorists have long advocated(Smith & Kirby, 2000).

We aimed to demonstrate subliminal emotion-specific appraisal

effects by showing whether appraisals of causal agency could be

systematically activated by subliminal primes associated with an-

ger and sadness. As primes, we used facial expressions. Facial

expressions serve communicative functions, and as primes they

approximate the social environment more closely than other stim-

uli (Ekman, 1984). They can induce congruent emotional re-

sponses through emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, &

Rapson, 1994) and consistently, facial electromyographic studies

have shown that people unintentionally mimic subliminal facial

expressions (e.g., Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000). Therefore,

it is plausible that the mimicry elicited by subliminal facial primescould instigate facial feedback effects (Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989)

that activate consistent emotional responses, including appraisals.

Our participants were first exposed to subliminal angry or sad

faces and then indicated in an open-ended format what they

thought were the causes of several events. Their responses were

coded for whether Agency-Others and Agency-Situation apprais-

als were made. Our hypotheses were that the subliminal angry

facial expressions should elicit more Agency-Others appraisals

than the subliminal sad facial expressions, and conversely, that the

subliminal sad faces should elicit more Agency-Situation apprais-

als than the subliminal angry faces. This design satisfied the two

requirements for testing subliminal emotion-specific cognitive ef-

fects since it compared the cognitive effects of subliminal primes

associated with two emotions of the same valence. In addition, bycomparing anger and sadness, one of which (anger) is generally

more approach-driven than the other (sadness; Harmon-Jones,

2003; Roseman, 2001), the current studies could inform the effects

of emotions based on their motivational functions. Self-reports of

angry and sad feelings were collected, but following past findings

(e.g., Ruys & Stapel, 2008; Winkielman, Berridge, & Wilbarger,

2005; Zemack-Rugar et al., 2007), we did not expect our sublim-

inal primes to produce strong angry and sad feelings. Hence, we

aimed not only to show that appraisals can be automatically

activated by subliminal emotional primes, but also to show that

such processes do not require strong emotional feelings.

Experiment 1

Method

Participants. Sixty-eight undergraduates from the National

University of Singapore (NUS) participated for course credits (52

women, mean age ϭ 20.13, SD ϭ 1.35). An equal number of

participants were randomly assigned to the Anger Prime andSadness Prime conditions.

Procedure and materials. Participants were seated in parti-

tioned computer terminals about 50 cm from the computer screen.

The experiment was administered using DirectRT (Jarvis, 2008).

Participants were told that they would be participating in several

unrelated studies. The first task required them to rate the extent to

which a set of Korean characters were positive or negative in

meaning. Responses to this task, which served only to administer

the facial primes, were not of main interest. Like most Singapore-

ans, none of our participants understood Korean. As a cover story,

we stated that people can infer the meaning of foreign languages

from the shape of their characters.

Participants started with five practice trials, followed by 50 maintrials. Both practice and main trials involved the same procedure.

Our priming procedure was adapted from similar studies (e.g.,

Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996). On each trial, a fixation point (ϩ)

was presented for 1,000 ms at the center of the screen. Participants

were told to focus on this point, allegedly because it would help

prepare them for the coming stimuli. A mask that comprised

diagonal cross-hatches on a gray background was then presented

for 200 ms. Next, a facial prime was presented. Participants in the

Anger Prime condition were exposed only to angry faces; those in

the Sadness Prime condition were exposed only to sad faces.

Exposure time for the primes ranged between 26 and 28 ms. Our

computers had a monitor refresh rate of 75 Hz and an Intel GMA

3000 graphic card with memory capability up to 256 MB. With

this hardware configuration, the lowest exposure time possible was26 ms. We set the exposure time at 26 ms, but because of hardware

functions we could not control, the actual exposure time varied

slightly between 26 and 28 ms (as indicated by DirectRT). The

facial prime was followed by a backward mask which comprised

a wall of “&” distributed uniformly over a gray background; this

mask was presented for 200 ms. A Korean word (e.g.,의자) was

then presented for 3,000 ms and participants had to rate it on a

7-point scale that ranged from 1 (extremely in negative meaning)

to 7 (extremely in positive meaning).1 Once a response was made

or when 3,000 ms had elapsed, the next trial was activated. Fifty

different Korean words were presented in randomized orders

across participants. Evaluation of the Korean words did not differ

between the Anger ( M ϭ 4.06, SD ϭ .49) and Sadness ( M ϭ 3.98,SD ϭ .55) Prime conditions, t (66) ϭ .59, p ϭ .56, suggesting that

the anger and sadness primes were of comparable valence.

Research suggests that facial expressions of an ethnicity differ-

ent from that of the perceiver might elicit unwanted stereotypic

responses (Bargh et al., 1996; Devine, Plant, Amodio, Harmon-

Jones, & Vance, 2002). To avoid such confound, Asian faces were

1 Consistent with past studies, we used characters that were affectively

bland (e.g., Murphy & Zajonc, 1993). In a pilot study, 20 NUS undergrad-

uates rated each character on the same scale. All ratings were not signif-

icantly different from the mid-point of the scale, all t s Ͻ 1.75, ps Ͼ .05.

916 YANG AND TONG



used. We constructed four facial expressions, with both genders

for each emotion (see Appendix A). Half of the trials in each

condition comprised faces of one gender, in random orders deter-

mined by DirectRT. The gender of the facial primes was not of

interest and an equal number of both genders were used to ensure

that our findings were not because of just one gender.

After all 50 trials, participants completed the Agency measure.The measure comprised 10 trials each describing a hypothetical

negative event (see Appendix B). These events were derived from

interviews with NUS students regarding their everyday experi-

ences. The participants indicated what they thought was the most

likely cause of each event in one brief sentence. On each trial, an

event was presented until a response was typed in. Participants

were told that there were no right or wrong answers and that they

should provide the first cause that came to mind. The events were

presented in randomized orders across participants.

Next, participants rated how angry and sad they felt currently on

7-point scales that ranged from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely).

Finally, a debriefing revealed that none of the participant thought

that the two tasks were related and none had knowledge of the

actual research question. Participants were thanked and dismissed.Pretesting the visibility of the facial primes. Primes pre-

sented at 26 to 28 ms tend to be perceived as flashes but are too

quick to be identified. Past studies that presented facial primes at

similar exposure times found them to be unidentifiable (e.g., Stapel

et al., 2002).2 However, no data on whether our participants could

identify the facial primes was collected. In a pilot-study to assess

the visibility of the primes, 33 NUS undergraduates were subject

to the same priming procedure. The only exception was that

participants were exposed to only one facial expression across the

50 trials; eight participants were exposed to the female angry face,

eight were exposed to the male angry face, seven were exposed to

the female sad face, and the rest were exposed to the male sad face.

After the 50th trial, they were presented with three faces (an angryface, a sad face, and a neutral face, all of the same gender as their

primes) and indicated which they thought was presented when they

rated the Korean words. A third (neutral) face was included to

make the identification task more difficult. Only six (out of 16)

participants in the Anger Prime condition and four (out of 17)

participants in the Sadness Prime condition correctly identified the

facial primes. Recognition rate across both conditions did not

differ from chance, 2 ϭ 0.14, p ϭ .71.

Results and Discussion

Two trained coders blind to the experimental assignment inde-

pendently coded all 680 responses from 68 participants. A re-

sponse indicating that the participant had appraised the event ascaused by another person(s) was coded as an Agency-Others

response (e.g., the response “ He was boring” for the event “The

night out with your date went badly”). A response indicating that

the event was appraised as caused by nonhuman factors was coded

as an Agency-Situation response (e.g., “ Bad Weather ”). Agency-

Self, in which the event was appraised as caused by the self, was

also coded (e.g., “ I was in a bad mood ”); the reason for examining

this appraisal will be shortly mentioned. Other responses that could

not be classified as such were coded as “Others”. Interrater agree-

ment was high (r ϭ .83, pϽ .001). Discrepancies were resolved by

a third coder also blind to the experimental assignment. Respective

responses were summed across all 10 events to give composite

Agency-Others, Agency-Situation, and Agency-Self scores. Out-

liers of more than 2 SDs from the mean were replaced by the

respective average values.3

A 2 (Prime) ϫ 2 (Agency) mixed ANOVA revealed a signifi-

cant interaction effect, F (1, 66) ϭ 13.07, p ϭ .001 2 ϭ .17.

Further analyses revealed that there were more Agency-Othersresponses in the Anger Prime condition than in the Sadness Prime

condition, t (66) ϭ 2.27, p ϭ .03, and there were more Agency-

Situation responses in the Sadness Prime condition than in the

Anger Prime condition, t (66) ϭ 2.67, p ϭ .01 (all tests were

two-tailed; see Table 1).

We found a number of Agency-Self responses on first observa-

tion and coded for this appraisal. The average number of Agency-

Self responses was 4.79 (SD ϭ 2.01) and 4.41 (SD ϭ 1.64) in the

Anger Prime and Sadness Prime conditions, respectively. Unex-

pectedly, more internal attributions were made than external

(human and situation) attributions, all F s Ͼ 24.23, ps Ͻ .001, 2Ͼ

.42. However, we did not expect to find an effect of Prime on

Agency-Self because there is little evidence from appraisal re-

search that anger and sadness differ on Agency-Self; further anal-yses supported this expectation, F (1, 66) ϭ .74, p ϭ .39, 2ϭ .01.

Hence, the anger and sadness primes affected only related apprais-

als (Agency-Others and Agency-Situation) but not unrelated ap-

praisals (Agency-Self).

There was no effect of Prime on reported anger, t (66) ϭ .41, pϭ

.68, and reported sadness, t (66) ϭ .67, p ϭ .51. At best only weak

feelings of anger and sadness were reported in the Anger Prime

( M anger ϭ 2.35, SDangerϭ 1.25; M sadnessϭ 2.62, SDsadnessϭ 1.52)

and Sadness Prime ( M anger ϭ 2.24, SDanger ϭ 1.10; M sadness ϭ

2.88, SDsadness ϭ 1.74) conditions. It is possible that the items

were not sensitive enough to capture emotional feelings, but if

there were strong feelings of anger and sadness, they should have

been revealed as high scores. Further, these items are similar tothose used in past studies (e.g., Ruys & Stapel, 2008), which also

found no effect of subliminal primes on reported emotions and

weak levels of emotional feelings. At the minimal, we can con-

clude that anger and sadness were not strongly felt.

Experiment 2

Experiment 2 extended Experiment 1 in several ways. First, we

did not ask the main participants in Experiment 1 about the

visibility of the primes and this was rectified in Experiment 2.

Second, we reduced the priming timeframe to 16 to 18 ms. Past

studies found that facial stimuli presented at such speed were

almost impossible to identify (Winkielman et al., 2005). If Exper-

2 Despite making this statement, we also urge caution in making

straightforward comparisons between studies in the visibility of subliminal

primes. Whether a prime can be identified depends on many factors other

than exposure time, such as the type of masks used, the type of primes

presented, brightness of the experimental setting, and the location of the

prime on the screen.3 It is possible that other appraisals were made. These other appraisals

were not analyzed because we wanted to focus on the current research

question. In addition, given that our participants were asked specifically

about Agency appraisals, and given that the responses were short one-

sentence responses, it was hard to detect other appraisals.

917AUTOMATIC EMOTION-APPRAISAL PROCESSES



iment 1 could be replicated even with this extremely rapid speed,

evidence for subliminal emotion-specific cognitive effects would

be stronger. Third, both negative and positive events were exam-

ined in Experiment 2. Past studies have shown that primes tend to

influence evaluation of only valence-congruent targets (Ravaja,

Kallinen, Saari, & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 2004). Consistently,

Keltner et al. (1993) found that angry and sad feelings affected

agency appraisals of negative events but not of positive events,

suggesting that emotions are more likely to influence appraisals of

valence-congruent events. Thus, we expected the hypothesized

effects of the subliminal facial primes on agency appraisals to be

found only with the negative events. Finally, participants in Ex-

periment 2 were undergraduates from China. China and Singapore

are typically classified together as collectivistic cultures but they

are very different in numerous aspects including philosophical

outlook, cultural values, and personal goals (Lau, 1992). Thus,

there are sufficient differences between China and Singapore to

provide an initial but substantive test of the cross-cultural consis-

tency of the results.

Method

Participants. One hundred and 12 students (104 females,mean age ϭ 20.45, SD ϭ 1.22) from Tangshan Vocational Tech-

nical College in China volunteered for this study after appeals

were made during their lectures. An equal number of participants

were randomly assigned to the Anger and Sadness Prime condi-

tions.

Procedure and materials. The procedure and materials were

identical to those in Experiment 1 except for these changes. First,

we used a computer with a monitor refresh rate of 60 Hz and an

ATI Mobility Radeon ϫ1600 video graphic card with 128 MB

memory capability. This configuration permitted the extremely

short exposure timeframe of 16–18 ms for pictorial primes. Again,

although we set the exposure time to 16 ms (which is the fastest

speed allowed by this configuration), the actual time varied

slightly between 16 and 18 ms because of hardware functions wecould not control. Second, all instructions were given in Mandarin

that is the dominant language of this sample of Chinese partici-

pants. Back-translation ensured that the instructions were seman-

tically equivalent. Third, positive events were constructed from

interviews with undergraduates about their everyday experiences.

Fourth, all but two negative events from Experiment 1 were

reused. Because the participants in Experiment 2 had to respond to

more events, we were concerned about fatigue effects. A pretesting

conducted on another sample of 20 Chinese participants showed

ceiling effects with two negative events: 90% of these participants

stated that the event “Your personal belongings were lost while

traveling overseas” could only be because of theft and 75%

claimed that “You missed a movie that you wanted to watch” was

quite impossible to imagine. These findings are interesting in their

own right, but they might not be appropriate for this study. Be-

cause only eight negative events were examined, only eight pos-

itive events were used (see Appendix B). Evaluation of the Korean

words again did not differ between the Anger Prime condition( M ϭ 4.18, SDϭ .64) and the Sadness Prime condition ( M ϭ 4.33,

SD ϭ .71), t (110) ϭ 1.17, p ϭ .25.

A debriefing conducted at the end of the experiment revealed

that no participant thought the tasks were related or knew what the

study was about. Participants were also asked whether they had

seen any faces during the priming task, and if so, what facial

expression was shown (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Four (out of

56) participants in the Anger Prime condition and nine (out of 56)

participants in the Sadness Prime condition reported having seen

something resembling faces but none could correctly identify the

faces.

Results and DiscussionTwo coders blind to the experimental assignment coded the

1,792 responses from all participants into the same Agency-

Others, Agency-Situation, Agency-Self, and Others categories.

Interrater reliability was high (r ϭ .94, pϽ .001) and discrepancies

were resolved by a third coder. The responses were summed to

produce Agency-Others, Agency-Situation, and Agency-Self. Out-

liers of more than 2 SDs from the mean were replaced with the

respective average values.

Most relevant to our hypotheses, a 2 (Prime) ϫ 2 (Agency) ϫ

2 (Events) mixed ANOVA revealed a significant interaction effect

between Prime and Agency, F (1, 110) ϭ 19.63, p Ͻ .001, 2 ϭ

.15, which was qualified by a significant three-way interaction

effect, F (1, 110) ϭ 4.35, p ϭ .04, 2

ϭ .04. We proceeded toexamine the critical Prime ϫ Agency interaction within each

Events condition. Consistent with predictions, a significant

Prime ϫ Agency interaction was found in the Negative Events

condition, F (1, 110) ϭ 41.23, p Ͻ .001, 2 ϭ .27, but not in the

Positive Events condition, F (1, 110) ϭ 5.05, p ϭ .16, 2 ϭ .02.

Further analyses in the Negative Events condition showed that

there were significantly more Agency-Others responses in the

Anger Prime condition than in the Sadness Prime condition,

t (110) ϭ 2.49, p ϭ .01, and more Agency-Situation responses in

the Sadness Prime condition than in the Anger Prime condition,

t (110) ϭ 6.56, p Ͻ .001 (see Table 2). Hence, Experiment 1 was

replicated with a quicker priming speed and a different cultural

sample. However, there was no significant effect of Prime on

Agency-Others, F (1, 66) ϭ .04, p ϭ .83, 2 ϭ .001, and Agency-Situation, F (1, 66) ϭ 2.90, p ϭ .09, 2 ϭ .04, in the Positive

Events condition. Therefore, as predicted, the facial primes af-

fected only appraisals of events of the same valence.

There appears to be a high level of Agency-Self responses to the

negative events ( M anger_prime ϭ 4.04, SDanger_prime ϭ 1.56;

M sadness_prime ϭ 3.71, SDsadness_prime ϭ 1.37) and to the positive

events ( M anger_primeϭ 4.43, SDanger_primeϭ 1.04; M sadness_primeϭ

4.20, SDsadness_prime ϭ 1.41) in both Prime conditions. In fact,

there was a stronger tendency to attribute both positive and

negative events to the self than to external factors (other people

and impersonal causes) in both Prime conditions, all F s Ͼ 56.51,

Table 1

Number of Agency-Others and Agency-Situation Responses as a

Function of Anger Prime and Sadness Prime (Experiment 1)

Agency-Others Agency-Situation

M SD M SD

Anger Prime 2.21 1.43 1.29 .87Sadness Prime 1.53 .99 1.97 1.19

918 YANG AND TONG



ps Ͻ .001, 2 Ͼ .51. A 2 (Prime) ϫ 2 (Events) mixed ANOVA

conducted on Agency-Self revealed a significant main effect of

Events, F (1, 110) ϭ 5.60, p ϭ .02, 2 ϭ .05, indicating more

Agency-Self responses in the Positive Events condition than in the

Negative Events condition. There was no main effect of Prime,

F (1, 110) ϭ 2.41, p ϭ .12, 2ϭ .02, and no interaction effect, F (1,

110) ϭ .06, p ϭ .81, 2 ϭ .001. Hence, Agency-Self was not

affected by the facial primes in both Events conditions.

As in Experiment 1, reported anger, t (110) ϭ 1.48, p ϭ .14, and

sadness, t (110) ϭ .78, p ϭ .44, were not affected by Prime. Only

weak levels of anger and sadness were reported in the Anger Prime

( M anger ϭ 2.32, SDangerϭ 1.49; M sadnessϭ 2.23, SDsadnessϭ 1.53)

and Sadness Prime ( M anger ϭ 1.91, SDanger ϭ 1.44; M sadness ϭ

2.00, SDsadness ϭ 1.61) conditions.

General Discussion

If emotional systems are effective adaptations to environmental

challenges, they should be capable of reacting automatically anddiscriminately to stimuli of different emotions so that emotion-

specific cognitive responses can be activated. However, evidence

for subliminal emotion-specific cognitive effects had not been

forthcoming. Focusing on agency appraisals, we found across two

cultural samples (Singapore and China) that subliminal angry

facial primes generated more appraisals of negative events as

caused by other people (Agency-Others) than subliminal sad facial

primes. In contrast, subliminal sad facial primes generated more

appraisals of the same events as caused by impersonal situational

factors (Agency-Situation) than subliminal angry facial primes.

Cognitive processes are known to differ as a function of affec-

tive valence but emotions can influence cognitive functions in

richer ways. Recent research suggests that emotions can be differ-

entiated according to their approach-withdrawal functions (Lang,Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1997), implying that emotions that differ on

this motivational distinction, such as anger versus sadness, should

exhibit different psychological consequences regardless of their

valence. Supporting this notion, past studies have shown that an

angry person is more likely than a sad person to evaluate events as

caused by other people but the sad person is more likely than the

angry person to appraise events as caused by impersonal situa-

tional factors (Keltner et al., 1993). The current studies extended

this research by showing that the same effects could occur without

a strong experience of anger or sadness or an awareness of their

origins. Across two studies, anger and sadness representations

were activated by subliminal facial primes. There was little evi-

dence to claim that participants were aware of the facial primes.

Debriefing data revealed that the participants were unaware that

their responses to the Agency measure were shaped by the prior

priming task. There was no indication of strong anger and sadness

feelings. In addition, the anger and sadness ratings did not differ

between the Prime conditions. Despite these, participants exhibiteddistinctive and predicted patterns of agency appraisals as a func-

tion of the subliminal facial primes. Moreover, these effects were

not just emotion-specific; they were also appraisal-specific. There

is little in appraisal theories to suggest that anger and sadness

should differ in Agency-Self (except in the case of self-anger that

is strongly associated with Agency-Self; Ellsworth & Tong, 2006).

Consistently, in both studies, the facial primes did not affect the

extent to which negative events were attributed to the self; they

only influenced the extent to which the same events were attrib-

uted to external humans and situational factors.

The mechanism by which subliminal facial expressions influ-

ence appraisals should be further clarified. We speculated that this

effect could be linked to the capacity to mimic facial expressions(Hatfield et al., 1994) and to facial feedback effects (Adelmann &

Zajonc, 1989). Specifically, we posited that the subliminal facial

primes might have elicited spontaneous and unconscious mimicry.

Efference effects from the facial muscular changes could in turn

elicit emotionally congruent responses, including associated

changes in appraisals. Future studies could examine this account

but note that there is an alternative perspective that does not

involve automatic mimicry. There could be evolutionarily pro-

grammed or culturally scripted memory networks that directly link

appraisals to representations of specific facial expressions. Ac-

cordingly, information unique to each facial expression is auto-

matically extracted, activating the relevant memory network and

producing associated changes in appraisals without mimicry (see a

similar account proposed by Smith & Kirby, 2000). Of interest is

what information is extracted from facial primes that could possi-

bly mediate their effects. Facial expressions can convey multiple

pieces of information simultaneously, such as affect, intention,

appraisals, threats, and relationship status (e.g., Ekman, 1993;

Keltner & Kring, 1998; Smith, 1989). In the present studies, the

anger expressions could have conveyed information associated

with power and authority, and the sadness expressions could have

conveyed information associated with helplessness, and activation

of representations associated with power and helplessness could

have activated appraisals of Agency-Others and Agency-Situation,

respectively. Future studies could examine the veracity of these

accounts (note that they do not contradict each other).

In both studies, the number of Agency-Others and Agency-Situation responses were quite small. However, note that there

were only 10 or 8 events (of each valence) to respond to and

participants gave only one cause to each event. Based on chance

alone, the expected number of responses reflecting each of the

three Agency categories should not be high. Nevertheless, this

could still pose a problem for the analyses if the distributions of the

Agency-Others and Agency-Situation scores were too skewed to

the right. However, in both studies, the distributions were fairly

normal, and even when the scores were subject to an appropriate

(square-root) transformation and then reanalyzed, the results were

similar.

Table 2

Number of Agency-Others and Agency-Situation Responses as a

Function of Anger Prime and Sadness Prime in the Negative

Events and Positive Events Conditions (Experiment 2)

Agency-Others Agency-Situation

M SD M SD

Negative eventsAnger Prime 1.33 1.08 1.11 .64Sadness Prime .91 .70 1.95 .71

Positive eventsAnger Prime 1.94 1.21 .76 .76Sadness Prime 1.98 1.24 1.27 1.03




We did not use the usual close-ended appraisal items but ana-

lyzed open-ended appraisal responses instead. Our dependent vari-

able was activation of Agency appraisals, which do not have to be

measured using the typical appraisal items. Self-report appraisal

items (e.g., “How much is this event caused by situational fac-

tors?”) that have notable advantages but also well-known limita-

tions. First, any ambiguity in the items (e.g., “situational factors”can be interpreted in different ways) would incur measurement

error. Second, responses to these items may reflect schematic

theories of appraisals and emotions. Third, suggestive item word-

ings can mislead respondents to infer that an appraisal was made

when in fact it was not. The open-ended measures used here should

be less susceptible to these effects. In addition, they allow partic-

ipants to respond more spontaneously. This method of assessing

appraisals allows researchers to detect not only hypothesized ap-

praisals but also unanticipated ones. However, we do not mean that

this method is superior to self-report as it also has limitations—the

extent to which specific appraisals can be coded depends on the

complexity of the appraisal and the length of the responses (Foot-

note 3; Yap & Tong, 2009).

Our findings were replicated across Singapore and China. In

addition, there were more Agency-Self appraisals than Agency-

Others and Agency-Situation appraisals in response to the negative

events in both cultures, which is quite consistent with findings that

East Asians tend to be more self-critical (Heine & Lehman, 1995).

However, similar findings were found among the Chinese partic-

ipants in response to the positive events, which support studies

showing that East Asians are also prone to self-enhancement

biases (Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003). In summary, there

was a general tendency to attribute events to the self regardless of

their valence.

To conclude, our findings underscore the sensitivity of the

human emotional system to emotion-specific cues and its capacity

to activate cognitive responses matched to these cues. Further,these reactions can occur outside of conscious awareness and

without strong emotional feelings, and they only require a non-

conscious activation of emotion representations.

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( Appendix follows)




Appendix A

Facial Primes Used in Experiments 1 and 2

Appendix B

Hypothetical Events Used in Experiments 1 and 2

Your personal belongings were lost while travelling overseas.1

You did not do as well in a graded assignment as you expected.1,2

The night out with your date went badly.1,2

Your team members met each other for the first time, but you could not contribute to the

conversation.1,2

You bought a product you did not really need.1,2

You had a quarrel with a loved one (family member/friend).1,2

You lost contact with your friend.1,2

You missed a movie that you wanted to watch.1

You did not get along with your team mate.1,2

Your contribution to your work went unrecognized.1,2

You had extra allowances for the month.2

You found a book you always wanted.2

A very bad habit of yours was kicked.2

You received a treat from your friend.2

You did a project that was highly praised.2

You were nominated as the leader of a group project.2

A cold war with your good friend finally ended.2

1 Events used in Experiment 1. 2 events used in Experiment 2.

Received December 28, 2009

Revision received April 20, 2010

Accepted May 3, 2010 Ⅲ

922 YANG AND TONG

eff of subliminal anger and sadness

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