PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL FACULDADE DE PSICOLOGIA PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM PSICOLOGIA

Considering the role that facial expressions play in interpersonal relations, efforts have been made in order to better understand this topic. However, there are still gaps concerning research with adolescents. As this developmental stage is marked by interpersonal relations, and as these are related to a better quality of life, this dissertation aimed to fulfill some of the gaps in the topic. Two studies were conducted. Study I aimed to fill the gap concerning the absence of an image database containing facial stimuli representing the six basic emotion expressions encompassing the entire period of adolescence and its transition to the beginning of adulthood. To this end, posed and spontaneous expressions of 31 teenagers and young adult from 12-20 years (14 men, Mage = 17.4, SD = 2.7) were collected with the use of three strategies: emotive scenarios, posed expressions, and reactions to visual stimuli. Two thousand two hundred and seventy nine frames were captured. Expert judges (N = 3) filtered the frames, thus leading to a total of 42 final frames (three for each basic emotion, and three depicting neutral faces, equally divided between genders). These images were standardized and after passing through a new panel of expert judges (N = 4), they have been validated, thus composing the Youth Emotion Picture Set (YEPS). Since there is a lack of studies that directly investigate the role of covariates in recognizing expressions, Study II aimed to investigate the role the verbal IQ, pubertal development, and socialization in the accuracy of recognition of expressions among adolescents. Participants were 90 adolescents and young adults (44 males, Mage = 16.7, SD = 2.4) divided into four age groups: 12-14 (n = 23), 15-16 (n = 19), 17-18 (n = 24), and 19-20 years (n = 25). They were assessed with regard to verbal IQ, number of friends, weekly interactions with friends, and level of pubertal development. After that, they completed an experimental task in which they had to categorize the emotion displayed in three different presentation speeds (200ms, 500ms, 1000ms). The facial stimuli used were collected from the YEPS. Findings showed that number of interactions with friends per week was inversely related to accuracy in recognizing anger and disgust. Verbal IQ was significantly proportional to the accuracy of surprise, disgust, and anger. Pubertal development was related to the recognition of expressions of happiness. This dissertation resulted in the development of the YEPS, an instrument that can be used in studies exploring emotions in adolescents or for clinical application purposes. Study II revealed that different covariates influenced the recognition of emotion expressions. The covariates predicted differently accuracy in emotion recognition, with none of them explaining it for all emotions under investigation. Key-words: Emotion, Facial expressions, Teenagers. Área conforme classificação CNPq: 7.07. 00.00-1 Psicologia Sub-área conforme classificação CNPq: 70706000 – Psicologia Cognitiva; 70701032 – Construção e validação de testes, esc. e. o. medidas psicológ.