Deficits in facial affect recognition and aggression: A systematic review

Deficits in processing emotional information are related to difficulties in the development of competent social behavior. In understanding aggressive behavior, a widely examined deficit is affect recognition. From this perspective, two questions have been raised in the literature: first, if there exists a deficit in facial affect recognition among aggressive people, and i f so, whether that deficit is global or specific to recognize a particular emotion. We conducted a systematic review to answer both questions. A systematic search using PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus for articles published in English and Spanish was performed. In 23 out of 27 studies, the results suggest the existence of deficits in facial affect recognition among aggressive people. However, results on the presence of a specific deficit in a particular emotion are inconclusive. Further empirical studies are needed to shed light on the relationship between both variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)