Anger Superiority Effect in Psychology

 

The anger superiority effect is a psychological phenomenon in which threatening faces are more easily detected in a crowd than are nonthreatening faces.

In a visual search tasks, Fox and others (2010) found people detected angry faces more quickly than happy faces.

Gong and Smart (2020) suggested that other faces in a crowd might influence the effect.

Reference

1. Elaine Fox, Victoria Lester, Riccardo Russo, R.J. Bowles, Alessio Pichler & Kevin Dutton (2000) Facial Expressions of Emotion: Are Angry Faces Detected More Efficiently?, Cognition and Emotion, 14:1, 61-92, DOI: 10.1080/026999300378996
2. Mingliang Gong & L. James Smart (2021) The anger superiority effect revisited: a visual crowding task, Cognition and Emotion, 35:2, 214-224, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1818552

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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Image- NPS exhibit of desegregation: photo of Elizabeth Ann Eckford on her way to enter Little Rock High School in 1957. An angry face in the crowd led to stories about the event.