Deliberate emotional expressions of socially anxious children and their mothers

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether socially anxious ch ildren show deficits in their deliberate facial expression of emotions. To test for potential mother-child transmission effects, the mothers' facial e xpressions were also assessed. Fifty socially anxious and 25 socially nonan xious children (8-12 years) and their mothers participated in a facial expr ession posing task. The expressions produced were coded using Ekman and Fri esen's (1978) Facial Action Coding System (FACS). In addition, naive raters rated their quality of emotion. FAGS analyses indicated that socially anxi ous children show a reduced general facial activity, have a more restricted facial repertoire and differ qualitatively from controls in their facial e xpression of emotions. Similarly, the global ratings indicated that the soc ially anxious children's posed facial expressions are less accurate. For th e mothers no differences between groups were found when global ratings were used. However, the FAGS data demonstrate that the facial expressions of mo thers of socially anxious children are less intense compared to controls. I t is possible that the decreased intensity of the mothers' facial expressiv eness makes it more difficult for the socially anxious children to learn ad equate facial expressions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.