Personal Nonverbal Repertoires in facial displays and their relation to individual differences in social and emotional styles

Research on individual differences in the occurrence of relatively frequent facial displays is scarce. We examined whether (1) individuals’ spontaneous facial expressions show a relatively frequent pattern of AUs (referred to as Personal Nonverbal Repertoires or PNRs), and (2) whether these patterns are associated with self-reported social and emotional styles. We videotaped 110 individuals during 10 minutes in 2 different contexts and manually FACS coded 18 AUs. Subsequently, participants completed questionnaires regarding individual differences in social and emotional styles: BIS/BAS, interpersonal orientation, conflict handling style, and emotion regulation (reliably reduced to 4 factors: Yielding, Forcing, Compromising and Extraversion). We found five patterns of PNRs: Smiling (AU6,12), Partial Blinking, Drooping (AU41, 63), Tensed (AU1 + 2, 4, 7, 23), and Eyes widening (AU5). Three PNRs showed weak to moderate correlations with individual differences in social and emotional styles (based on EFA): Smiling is associated with Compromising and Extraversion, Drooping with Yielding, and Partial Blinking is negatively correlated with Extraversion. These findings suggest that some of an individual’s frequent facial action patterns are associated with specific styles in social and emotional interactions.