Red Enhances the Processing of Anger Facial Configurations as a Function of Target Gender

Various contextual factors, such as color, modify how emotions are perceived on the face. In particular, the color red enhances categorization of anger on faces. Yet, an open question remains as to whether red facilitates anger categorization uniformly or whether this effect is specific to targets with characteristics already highly associated with anger. The current work examines whether the color red facilitates anger categorization and whether this effect varies as a function of target gender. We found that red facilitates the processing of anger for male faces (Experiment 1) but not for female faces (Experiment 2), likely due to stronger implicit associations between red with anger for male faces (Experiment 3). The findings suggest that cues to emotion (e.g., red cueing anger) are most salient when the meaning of the signal (e.g., threat) matches observer's implicit notions about the target's characteristics (e.g., capability of doing harm; males).