Emotional Expressions Affect Perceptions of Younger and Older Adults' Everyday Competence

Facial expressions of emotion allow us to predict other people's intentions and behaviors. However, we often overextend these predictions to also make inferences about other people's underlying tendencies and dispositions. People with happy expressions are perceived to have stable positive traits whereas people with sad expressions are perceived to have stable negative traits. In these studies, we tested whether this extends to inferences about younger and older adults' abilities to complete fundamental activities of independent living, such as independently getting dressed, preparing food, and remembering directions. Our results showed that both younger and older adult targets were perceived to have greater everyday competence in completing activities of daily living (ADLs), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). and memory tasks when they displayed happy or neutral expressions rather than sad expressions. This pattern did not vary based upon either the target's gender or the participant's age. However, for the ADL and IADL ratings, the overgeneralization of emotions to ratings of everyday competence was greater for the older adult targets than for the younger adult targets. Drawing from the ecological approach to social perception, these results suggests that spontaneous trait inferences are most likely to occur when the age-trait association is strong. Given that perceptions of competence are also associated with behavioral ramifications, such as being subjected to patronizing behavior, having lower employment opportunities, and being seen as low in social status, our results also suggest that older adults whose facial expressions appear sad may be especially prone to these adverse outcomes.