In everyday language, emotions are any relatively brief conscious experiences characterized by intense mental activity and a high degree of pleasure or displeasure. In scientific research, a consistent definition has not been found yet. There’s certainly conceptual overlaps between the psychological and neuroscientific underpinnings of emotions, moods, and feelings.
Emotions are closely linked to physiological and psychological arousal with various levels of arousal relating to specific emotions. In neurobiological terms, emotions could be defined as complex action programs triggered by the presence of certain external or internal stimuli.
Facial expressions convey information that when properly
interpreted can help social scientists to gain insights about human
behaviors. In the field of marketing, despite the fact that
emotions are long known to play an important role in decision-
making process and formulation of preference, research on facial
expression is still in its infancy.
This chapter aims to provide the reader with a variety of
examples of studies based on facial expression analysis in the
marketing, consumer behavior, and advertising domains. By
disclosing a list of recent studies on emotional responses, this
chapter aims to identify different streams of thought that could
guide future research in the aforementioned areas. A final remark
is added about ethical concerns that may arise from
indicated that facial expressions convey information
regarding the basic behavioral intentions and emotional
tendencies of the organism (human or animal) to others, playing
an important role in signaling potential positive or negative
outcomes (Eastwood, Smilek, and Merikle, 2003). Faces also
elicit emotions in observers, a phenomenon called "emotional
contagion" (Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson, 1992, 1994;
Neumann and Strack, 2000).
Facial expression is a richest medium to express our moods,
to regulate interaction with others, and to reinforce the message
sent to the recipient. Consequently, the study of facial expression
of emotion has become relevant and necessary in different social
domains. This does not mean that facial expression analysis
substitute the analysis of hands and verbal communication as
expression of emotions. In fact, it is important to recognize the
importance of verbal communication in digital contexts where
visual contact may not exist. Still, daily contact between humans
is still carried out mainly in person, the face being the privileged
zone in the visualization of the other during a communication
process, which emphasizes the importance of facial expression in
communication and in the process of group membership. A study
by Mehrabian and Ferris (1967) revealed that 55% of the impact
of the message is contributed by nonverbal communication, 38%
by tone of voice, and 7% by words. Verbal language can be used
to enlarge the nonverbal, and vice versa. These two forms of
communication may correspond in their express content or be
discordant, creating divisions between what the individual
verbalizes and what the body and movement express (Corraze,
1982).
It is not surprisingly then to observe that social sciences
often examine emotion to gain insights to understand social
Not all communication transmitted through facial
expression is likely to be perceived by the interlocutor
consciously. This assumption is reinforced by the findings from
the study of Littlewort et al. (2009), according to which
computers can identify 85% of the time the difference between
real pain and sham pain from the facial expression of a person,
whereas humans could differentiate in 55% of the time.
Emotions Marketing
Ever since it becomes clear that emotions may determine
consumer decisions they have been playing an important role in
marketing and in consumer behavior studies (Shiv and
Fedorikhin, 1999; Yu and Dean, 2001; Zhang, Cheung, and Lee,
2014), being analyzed from the perspective of both consumers
and brands, regardless if they are induced (for instance, by
advertising) or spontaneous, as when a consumer is considering
buying or using a product (Ruth, Brunel, and Otnes, 2002).
The use of traditional tests, such as self-reports based on
sensory profiling and hedonic scales, has not been able to
sufficiently predict market performance and consumer
Finally, facial measurements of emotion allow us to capture
precise temporal information about a person’s emotional
experience (McDuff, et al, 2015), while self-reports inevitably
fail to do so, as they are posterior to the experience.
In the field of marketing research facial expression analysis
is still in its infancy. The following studies are an example of
how emotional responses can provide us better understanding of
consumer behavior. This list is not meant to be exhaustive and
can be subject to change, but it is expected to provide the reader
with a variety of possible applications of facial expression
analysis in the aforementioned area.
Marketing
Some authors have shown that the impact of a seller's facial
expression on buying behavior in an online peer-to-peer context
is significant. A negative facial expression and absence of facial
image can abate approach and evokes avoidance tendencies to
explore a specific web page on Airbnb, decreasing the likelihood
to rent. This effect cannot be compensated by a low price and top
customer ratings related to likelihood to rent (Fagerstrøm et al
2017). The reverse effect was true for neutral and positive facial
expressions. Moreover, the authors found that a negative and
positive facial expression had more impact on likelihood to rent,
for women than for men. A previous study by Ert et al., (2016)
has also investigated the role of personal images on Airbnb in
relation to trust and reputation, and their findings showed that
people were willing to pay more for properties belonging to
sellers who were perceived to be trustworthy.
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