TY - JOUR
T1 - A Multimodal Examination of Emotional Responding to a Trauma-Relevant Film Among Traumatic Motor Vehicle Accident Survivors
AU - Bujarski, Sarah J.
AU - Craig, James T.
AU - Zielinski, Melissa J.
AU - Badour, Christal L.
AU - Feldner, Matthew T.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2014
PY - 2015/4/16
Y1 - 2015/4/16
N2 - The Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen) has shown promise as a behavioral measure of emotional experience. The current study examined the degree of (de)synchrony between self-reported and facial expressions of fear, disgust, and sadness in response to a traumatic event–relevant film among individuals who had experienced a traumatic motor vehicle accident. Given high rates of comorbidity between posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and depressive symptoms, the potential impacts of both PTSS and depressive symptoms on emotional responding were examined. Results demonstrated synchrony between self-reported and facial expressions of disgust and sadness; however, no association between measures of fear was observed. Furthermore, depressive symptoms were associated with greater fear responding and PTSS were associated only with self-reported fear. Together, results support the importance of examining discrete negative emotions, rather than broad valence categories, when examining fear-based responding in traumatic event–exposed populations. Additional research examining the psychometric properties of the Facial Action Coding System as a measure of discrete emotional experiences among traumatic event–exposed individuals is needed to advance multimodal assessment approaches that yield incremental information for understanding emotional responding in this population.
AB - The Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen) has shown promise as a behavioral measure of emotional experience. The current study examined the degree of (de)synchrony between self-reported and facial expressions of fear, disgust, and sadness in response to a traumatic event–relevant film among individuals who had experienced a traumatic motor vehicle accident. Given high rates of comorbidity between posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and depressive symptoms, the potential impacts of both PTSS and depressive symptoms on emotional responding were examined. Results demonstrated synchrony between self-reported and facial expressions of disgust and sadness; however, no association between measures of fear was observed. Furthermore, depressive symptoms were associated with greater fear responding and PTSS were associated only with self-reported fear. Together, results support the importance of examining discrete negative emotions, rather than broad valence categories, when examining fear-based responding in traumatic event–exposed populations. Additional research examining the psychometric properties of the Facial Action Coding System as a measure of discrete emotional experiences among traumatic event–exposed individuals is needed to advance multimodal assessment approaches that yield incremental information for understanding emotional responding in this population.
KW - facial coding
KW - multimodal
KW - posttraumatic stress
KW - stressful film
KW - trauma
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U2 - 10.1177/1073191114548030
DO - 10.1177/1073191114548030
M3 - Article
C2 - 25139384
AN - SCOPUS:84924911882
SN - 1073-1911
VL - 22
SP - 216
EP - 223
JO - Assessment
JF - Assessment
IS - 2
ER -