Age, Gender, And Demographics In Relation To Emotional Recognition

During the course of society, emotions have been used as an effective tool when it comes to communicating the thought processes of people. It goes to show the conscious as well as the unconscious state of the mind of the people. At times, due to the hyper-masculine notion of society that people have developed these days, the expression of emotion is something that is perceived as a weakness (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). What it does is that it allows others to make sure that they are able to exhibit their true feelings at any given point in time (Schwenck et al. 2014). If one talks about the way emotions are expressed through facial expressions, it is about how emotional expression is bound to vary when it comes to men and women (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). The idea is to look at some of the differences that exist when it comes to the processing of emotions that are witnessed between both genders (Schwenck et al. 2014).

Literature Review

The way content in online social media is being expressed, content not being expressed in the form of text, but the pictures and videos play an important part in making sure that the message is being delivered. Take the example of YouTube, which has about 1 billion users across the world, and as per some estimates, about 100 hours of videos are uploaded every day on YouTube (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). The emergence of video blogs has shown that people these days are paying attention to the facial expressions and recognition of people as well as the content of video blogs (Schwenck et al. 2014). The idea of these blogs is to make sure that they are able to extract emotions in the right manner (Schwenck et al. 2014). If one looks at the idea closely, then the assumption can be made that the presupposed knowledge base becomes very important regarding the way emotions are expressed and perceived at a given point in time (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). The interesting thing that needs to be looked at is whether the gender and the age of the person play a role in the way they perceive their emotions through their facial expressions (Allgood & Heaton, 2015).

Studies Related To The Cognitive Science

There are many studies that talk about the way cognitive studies tend to work, which is how the perception and the recognition of emotions are supposed to be carried out (Sidorov et al. 2016). The discussion was centered on the relationship that exists between the cultural sensibilities of the person and the way they emote (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). As to Darwin, expressions and emotions are universal, and the gender and age of the person do not have any bearing on the way a person emotes (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). Since that assumption, there are a plethora of studies that are carried out in relation to the way some of the basic emotions such as anger, fear and disgust are being expressed, and the key conclusion that is being reached from all these cognitive studies is that all healthy humans are able to relate and recognize these emotions in the faces of the human beings (Allgood & Heaton, 2015).

Observations From The Recent Studies

The observation that can be seen from the more recent studies points toward the fact that how different people from different cultures act in certain ways in different situations (Schwenck et al. 2014). The key observation from this study was that despite the fact that they showed the same emotion, the extent of the reaction varied from one gender to the other. This degree of variance was also witnessed in the instances when the way cultures were showing their emotions regarding certain things (Wood et al. 2016. Another observation was that women were much more able when it comes to gauge and measure emotions in the face of their own gender as well as the opposite gender (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). The other interesting observation was that these subtle differences that exist in the way emotional recognition is carried out decline with the passage of time, and as people age, they lose this ability or understand the emotions of other people by just looking at their faces (Allgood & Heaton, 2015).

Understanding And Recognition Of The Universal Emotions

Now, if one talks about the understanding of universal emotions, the key aspect is that all cultures have shown a basic understanding of the way these emotions are supposed to be understood. There are not many differences across cultures when its estimating is carried out. The key difference, though, was the extent to which that emotion was being felt and what are some of the determinants that affected the way emotions are being felt by certain individuals at a given point in time (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). For instance, one of the key differences that were witnessed between people of Japan and America is that while people from both nations felt the same emotions, which are called universal emotions, the extent was different (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). Americans were witnessed to be much more buoyant when it comes to expressing the idea of happiness (Sidorov et al. 2016). On the other hand, people in Japan were quite reluctant, to say the least, when one talks about the way they were depicting their emotions at the given time period (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). There was a considerable difference in the way emotions are expressed among women in different nations (Allgood & Heaton, 2015).

Existence Of The Agreement Of The Emotional Recognition

The existence of the different levels of the agreement when one talks about the way emotional recognition is bound to vary as far as the agreement goes (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). Happiness was witnessed to be the highest agreement, while on the other hand, the feeling of disgust and fear showed the lowest value among all the emotional responses (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). This pretty much confirms earlier findings that fear is the basic emotion that is most incoherently recognized (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). One of the plausible expressions given for it was the fact that how the different emotions depicting the same expressive qualities, such as fear and surprise, are the ones that are confused with each other with the passage of time (Allgood & Heaton, 2015).

Cultural Differences In The Emotional Recognition

There are significant cultural differences as well when one talks about the agreement of the level of intensity that one gets to see regarding the way expressed emotions are supposed to be looked at (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). The level of intensity that is being assigned to each of the respective emotions is also bound to vary from one culture to the other (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). As a matter of fact, there are certain rules when it comes to the expression of emotions in different cultures (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). The Japanese people are the ones that tend to hide emotions most of the time. As a matter of fact, even if they are negative emotions, people in Japan are supposed to make sure that they are showing these emotions to a higher degree (Schwenck et al. 2014). On the other hand, American people are more expressive even if they talk about their negative emotions (Allgood & Heaton, 2015). Thus, both these people of the same culture reacted in different manners to the same emotion (Allgood & Heaton, 2015).

Female Advantage In The Decoding Of The Emotions

There is considerable evidence to support the fact that women have been found to be much better when it comes to the way decoding of human emotions is supposed to be carried out (Schlegel et al. 2014). They are supposed to be much more accurate when they are finding out the correct pattern as far as the rating of the emotions is supposed to be carried out (Briceño et al. 2015). The difference was much more prominent when one talks about the tasks that involve a multiscalar rating scale (Briceño et al. 2015). The difference was far less visible if one talks about the same thing in the case of the single-choice tasks (Calvo et al. 2014). The expression of the emotion and the way it was carried out was also different in women (Calvo et al. 2014). It was witnessed that they were much better when it came to the expression of emotions such as sadness and fear as compared to men (Rukavina et al. 2016). The only emotion that men were much better at conveying was the idea of anger (Sidorov et al. 2016). The study also pointed out the fact that how females were much more capable of looking anger on the faces of other females in a better manner (Patel et al. 2017).

Behaving In The Stereotype Consistent Manner

While the interpretation of the emotions is carried out, it was witnessed that the women turned out to be much more ambiguous as far as the expression of anger and sadness is supposed to be carried out (Sidorov et al. 2016). The key observation during the course of the whole process was how women are more prone to react to negative emotions as compared to men (Sidorov et al. 2016). The interesting thing that was witnessed during the course of the research was the fact that even when there is a case that the women are supposed to be showing unambiguous female anger expression, the participation rate of these as the combination of the anger and fear was witnessed with the passage of time (Sidorov et al. 2016). What it did was that it pretty much enforced the stereotypes and the perceived behavior of the certain gender with the given emotion at a certain point in time. The study on the different age groups also showed some interesting results (Campbell et al. 2014). It was seen that the different that older subjects are less accurate when it comes to the identification of emotions through facial recognition (Campbell et al. 2014). The starting point of this decline is at 30 years of age for emotions such as anger and sadness (Rynkiewicz et al. 2016). The 60 years is the age in which people lose the sense of ability to recognize the emotions of the other people. The only emotion that they are able to recognize in a better manner is that of disgust (Rynkiewicz et al. 2016). Thus, the age and gender demographics of the person play a huge role when it comes to the extent to which they are able to relate to or understand certain emotions at a given time period. The key consideration that has to be kept in mind is that what is the role of age in these incidents and how the behavior of the people changes with the way age-rated incidents are supposed to be looked at (Patel et al. 2017). The role of sensory modalities is also important as far as the understanding of the emotions is concerned. Even in this case, women were found to be much more accurate as far as the way they express certain emotions. This effect was partially mediated by hearing loss for the frequency of 8,000 Hz. Moreover, there was a gender-specific selection bias for alluring stimuli: Men, as compared to women, chose “alluring” more often when a stimulus was presented by a woman as compared to a man (Demenescu et al. 2014).

Core Areas Of Biological, Cognitive And Social Psychology

One of the key things that need to be looked at in terms of this research is how it would be made sure that all the core areas of psychology are taken into consideration when the whole activity is carried out (Demenescu et al. 2014). When one talks about the way it is conveyed and depicted, the important thing is to make sure that the understanding of the distinctive aspects is carried out in the appropriate manner (Demenescu et al. 2014). To make sure that the study turns out to be well-rounded, the following are the areas that would be given greater consideration (Demenescu et al. 2014).

Behavioral Psychology

Also known as behaviorism, the core idea is to have an idea and develop an understanding of the learning that is based on the behaviors that are acquired with the help of conditioning (Palumbo et al. 2017).

Biopsychology

It is the study that talks about the fact that how our brain acts to certain feelings, thoughts and behaviors (Sidorov et al. 2016). It is a field that has important implications if one talks about the way emotional recognition is carried out, as it gives an insight into how different emotions are understood at a certain level to make sure that a more profound understanding is developed (Dibeklioğlu et al. 2015).

Cognitive Psychology

It is one of the important areas if one has to understand the way emotional recognition is supposed to work out (Dibeklioğlu et al. 2015). It is an area that tends to focus on the internal mental state of the person (Palumbo et al. 2017). It is an area that is an important part of the way the human mind and behavior are supposed to work and what are some of the emotional responses that people have to give at a certain time period (Dibeklioğlu et al. 2015). These three areas act as core fields of study that take into account the overall biological and cognitive skill set of people at a given point in time (Palumbo et al. 2017). They would also give important insight into the way social psychology is related to the way emotional recognition is supposed to be working out at the given time period (Demenescu et al. 2014).

Methodology Of The Research

The data that is going to be collected during the course of the study will be taken from the university laboratory (Sidorov et al. 2016). The same protocols are going to be followed as they are followed during the course of any primary research (Sidorov et al. 2016). Another important thing is how the testing of the subjects is going to be carried out. To make sure that there is a better sense of their actions, an effort would be made to make sure that each of the subjects is being tested at the individual level (Wood et al. 2016. First, the subject is going to be performing the emotional recognition task, and during the course of the second phase, they will be filling out the CSQs, which are the questionnaires that are related to gender and cultural stereotypes (Franklin & Zebrowitz, 2017). To make sure that a better sense is being made of their personal beliefs, there is also going to be a questionnaire that is going to articulate the set of personal beliefs that are delivered by them at the given time period (Franklin & Zebrowitz, 2017).

Selection Of The Stimuli

As far as the data that is related to emotional recognition is concerned, the core idea is to make sure that the Nim Stem database of facial recognition is being used. The data is going to be consisting of 650 images of facial expressions, and these emotions are going to be expressed by 43 actors (Guastella & Hickie, 2016). The emotions that are going to be expressed would constitute the different variations of being angry or lingering feelings of disgust over certain things (O’Reilly et al. 2016). There are going to be some positive emotional responses as well, such as happiness and sadness, as well as the feeling of surprise (Guastella & Hickie, 2016). The neutral and calm expression is also witnessed during the course of the whole process to have a better sense of what these actors are feeling (Guastella & Hickie, 2016).

Experimental Setup

All the experiments are going to be conducted using an open-source software program that is going to be installed on the Apple Macbook Pro (O’Reilly et al. 2016). Each of the image sizes is going to appear on the center of the screen, and each of the participants is expected to look at 112 stimuli. Each of the participants that are part of the study was supposed to make sure that they go through about 112 stimuli (Wood et al. 2016. The idea to go through 112 stimuli was to make sure that better ideas can be developed regarding the way how each of the participants is going to work out at the given time period (Wood et al. 2016. After each of the images is going to be carried out, the ideal thing that needs to be done is to make sure that the depiction of the six basic emotions is supposed to be carried out (O’Reilly et al. 2016). The on-screen instructions for the participants are also needed to be followed (Nook et al. 2015). All the statistical analysis is going to be carried out using the SPSS. In this case, version 22 is going to be used, and post hoc analysis is also going to be carried out (Nook et al. 2015).

Conclusion

Even though all human beings recognize emotion at the basic level, the interesting thing is to make sure that how these emotions are recognized at each level and what are some of the impending factors that affect this ability to recognize emotions (Lawrence et al. 2015). For instance, what is the effect of gender, age and demographics of the person on their ability to recognize emotions is one of the key aspects of the study (Heller et al. 2018). The study is also going to take into account the fact that other than recognizing human emotions and how apt people are to recognize the emotions of other people in the given time period (Heller et al. 2018).

References

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