Correspondence of emotional self-rating with facial expression

Emotional processing abilities are difficult to measure psychometrically. U ltimately their quantification has to rely on 'subjective' judgment thereby leaving open the problem of response biases. Assessments of autonomic arou sal similarly provide a mere unspecified measurement of a specific emotion. A standardized mood induction procedure capable of obtaining reliable happ y and sad mood changes in healthy subjects was used to demonstrate the effe ctiveness of this procedure. We performed a two-part experiment using a rat er-based analysis of facial expressions. This entailed analyzing the emotio n portrayed in the faces. The faces of 24 healthy subjects were videotaped during the mood induction procedure of happiness and sadness, respectively. A group of 20 raters naive to the experimental task and conditions rated t he facial expressions on six basic emotions. Results showed that ratings co rresponded with the facial expressions, which were reflecting the mood of t he task condition. Subjects' facial expressions together with self-ratings demonstrate the successful applicability of this standardized mood inductio n procedure for eliciting happy and sad mood. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ire land Ltd. All rights reserved.