Judging others' emotions as a function of the others' status

These studies addressed expectancies concerning the emotion-eliciting condi tions experienced by individuals of differing status, the emotions experien ced and displayed by these individuals, and the norms dictating their displ ay of emotions. As expected, participants in Study I judged low-status rela tive to high-status individuals as (I) more likely to experience elicitors of anger, disgust, sadness, and fear, (2) less likely to experience elicito rs of happiness, and (3) generally equally likely to experience elicitors o f love. In agreement with Study I, participants in Study 2 perceived low-st atus relative to high-status individuals as experiencing (I) more anger, sa dness, and fear, (2) less happiness, and (3) similar levels of love. Partic ipants in Study 2 also perceived low-status relative to high-status individ uals as displaying less anger and disgust, more sadness and fear, less happ iness, and similar levels of love. Findings of Study 3 indicate that the pe rceived discrepancy between experience and display for both anger and disgu st in Study 2 reflects people's beliefs regarding norms of emotional expres sion.