“Don’t Know” responses in young adults’ inferences about the emotions of self and others in equivocal versus unequivocal emotional situations

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Abstract

This study investigated how people around 20 years of age make “Don’t Know” (DK) responses in inferring the emotions of others in equivocal versus unequivocal (positive or negative) emotional situations. There were four main patterns of results: (1) The frequency of DK responses was greater in equivocal situations than in unequivocal situations. (2) DK responses in inferring the emotions of others (Other Emotion Condition; OEC) were more frequent than DK responses in inferring the emotions of self (Self Emotion Condition; SEC), although this difference was not found in unequivocal situations. (3) In equivocal situations, DK responses occurred more frequently when inferences about the self were made first (Self First Condition; SFC) than when inferences about others were made first (Other First Condition; OFC). This suggests that inferring the emotions of self activates self-consciousness and enhances discrimination between self and others, thus increasing the frequency of occurrence of DK responses. (4) In an analysis of response patterns (distributions of DK responses), a lack of correspondence was found between DK responses in SEC and in OEC. This suggests that the projection of inferencing about the self --that is, an egocentric process--does not appear (or appears only weakly) with DK responses in inferring the emotions of others.

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