In the current study we examined how emotional expressions infl uence two social judgments, approachability and trustworthiness, and how the effect of emotional expression is modulated by the direction of the signaller's eye gaze. For both social judgments, happy faces were judged more positively than all other emotions, while neutral faces were judged more favorably than faces displaying negative emotions. Angry and disgusted faces were given the most negative ratings, signifi cantly more so than sad and fearful faces. Direction of eye gaze modulated the degree to which angry, happy, and neutral expressions infl uenced social judgments, which refl ected the manner in which direction of eye gaze infl uenced the perceived intensity of these emotional expressions. The results suggest that the perception of direct threat, coupled with emotional intensity, both play a key role in the process of making social judgments. In our daily lives we continually make judgments about other individuals that infl uence our subsequent social behavior. When individuals are unknown to us, their facial appearance becomes one of the most salient social indicators. In particular, an individual's facial expression signals important information regarding their internal state and behavioral intentions (Ekman, 1997) . Utilizing this We are grateful to Ralph Adolphs, Tony Atkinson, Sam Baggott, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Thanks also to Helen Dodd for helpful discussions about the data.
REF ] examined how gaze direction along with facial expression impact the approachability and trustworthiness of faces.
Social Judgments are Influenced By Both Facial Expression and Direction of Eye Gaze
Social Cognition
Psychology