Subject Know Thyself? Comparing Self Reported and Observed Emotions and Their Influence on Political Attitudes
Do subjects' self reports of emotion correspond to observable evidence of emotion when subjects are exposed to complex emotional stimuli such as video news reports? We explore the answer to this question with a pilot study that uses software that machine codes facial expressions of subjects to detect discrete emotions. Subjects were randomized to receive a positive, situationally framed news story about drone warfare or a negative episodically framed news story about drone warfare followed by a series of standard emotion self report questions. The data produced by automated facial action coding permits a set of nuanced tests to link the ordering complex stimuli to self reports of emotion and to subsequent opinions about drone warfare. We find evidence that self reports and observed emotions are weakly related and observed emotion predicts attitudes about drone warfare independent of self reports. This suggests that self reports, while useful, do not capture the full extent of emotional experiences that shape political attitudes.