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Relationships are of vital importance to our survival and well-being (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Bowlby, 1969, 1973; Buss, 2003; Gilbert, 1989). One way in which we monitor the quality of our relationships and whether we are likely to be accepted or rejected by others is through non-verbal communications, primarily facial expressions (Darwin, 1872; Ekman & Friesen, 1971). Whilst there is much research on the processing of social threat signals and threatening facial expressions (Mogg & Bradley, 2002), research on the processing of facial expressions which convey safeness and altruism is scant. It is known that certain individuals have attentional biases toward threatening cues especially those conveyed through facial expressions. These same individuals tend to have diminished attentional focus toward positive cues such as happy facial expressions. This thesis explores how people process socially affiliative facial expressions, in particular those deemed compassionate. The processing of these facial expressions will be explored in relation to a variety of individual differences in mood, attachment, self-evaluation (namely self-criticism) and social rank. Chapters 1-3 of this thesis outline the background, aims and methodologies. Chapters 4-7 outline the four studies of this thesis which explore facial attentional processing in light of individual differences and primed positive and negative moods. Study 1 explores the processing of accepting and rejecting faces when participants are primed with compassionate, critical or no mental imagery; Study 2 develops and validates a new facial stimulus set displaying compassionate, critical and neutral facial expressions; Study 3 explores the attentional processing of these new compassionate and critical stimuli; Study 4 explores the attentional processing of compassionate and critical expressions when participants are primed with compassionate or critical Imagery. The first study showed that different types of imagery task and individual differences in self-esteem were associated with different attentional processing of accepting and rejecting facial expressions. However, participant feedback suggested that some of the stimuli may have been threatening. Hence Study 2 produced a validated stimulus set of compassionate and critical expressions to be used in further studies of this thesis. Studies 3 and 4 found that individual differences in self-criticism (and to a lesser degree anxiety) influence the way in which compassionate expressions are attended to. The key findings were that high self-critics showed diminished attention to compassionate faces (Study 3) however, when given critical imagery (Study 4), high self-critics showed enhanced attention to compassionate faces. This reversal in attentional processing may be due to finding the compassionate faces threatening or alternatively could reflect participant's attempts to reduce distress through seeking affiliation. Self-criticism is a transdiagnostic factor characterising a variety of mental health difficulties and has been shown to interfere with treatment effectiveness (Rector, Bagby, Segal, Joffe, & Levitt, 2000). This thesis has shown that self-criticism is associated with difficulties in attentional processing of compassionate stimuli. This has clinical implications as this processing difficulty may result in, the maintenance of self-criticism, affective disorders and difficulties in interpersonal relationships including the therapeutic relationship. Compassion has recently become the focus of therapeutic interventions as a treatment for self-criticism (Gilbert, 2005, 2007, 2009; Gilbert & Procter, 2006), hence if self-critics have difficulties processing compassion, this has important implications for therapeutic interventions.

Living in large groups is, for many species, an adaptive solution to survival and reproductive issues. It followed that in primates, and even more so humans, communication evolved into a complex signalling system that includes language, nonverbal vocalisations such as laughter, and facial expressions. A series of studies were designed to address the function of smiling and laughter through an analysis of context and consequences. First, naturalistic observations were conducted in areas where people could be watched interacting in stable social groups. Focal sampling of men and women allowed the recording of smiling and laughter frequencies, as well as other interpersonal aspects such as talking and listening time, and body contacts. Smiles were classified in two categories: spontaneous and forced. A test based on predictions derived from three hypotheses (mate choice, social competition, and cooperation) revealed that spontaneous smiling and laughter are likely to be involved in the formation of cooperative relationships. A closer examination of dyadic interactions revealed that smiling was related to talking and listening time, whereas female's vocalised laughter positively affected the partner's speech output. Finally, smiling and laughter rates increased the probability of observing affiliative body contacts between individuals. A second set of studies investigated the possibility that smiling could (1) advertise attributes relevant to the formation of social relationships, and (2) be a honest signal of altruistic dispositions. The assessment of various traits was examined through people's judgments of neutral and smiling photographs. Results showed that smiling faces were perceived as being significantly more attractive, more generous, healthier, more agreeable, more extroverted, and more open to experiences than their neutral counterparts. Interestingly, men were influenced by smiling in a much larger extent than women, particularly when smiling faces were female's. The rating study also revealed that people who displayed smiles involving an emotional component (Duchenne smiles) received higher scores on extroversion and generosity than people who did not, indicating that people's ratings of sociability and generosity are sensitive to facial movements that are not easy to produce on purpose. A final study investigated the effect of bargaining contexts on smiling and laughter rates between friends. Analysis of videotaped interactions showed that Duchenne smiling and vocalised laughter were displayed at significantly higher rates when people were involved in the sharing of material resources (as opposed to a control interaction). Moreover, data confirmed that Duchenne smiling could be a reliable signal of altruism, as its frequency of occurrence in the bargaining interaction was positively affected by measures of altruism. Finally, results showed that smiling and laughter could advertise personality traits as well as aspects of the relationship between sender and receiver. All in all, the present thesis indicates that smiling and laughter could be used adaptively to develop social alliances, and that this bonding process would entail the reliable advertisement of evolutionarily relevant attributes. The relevance of smiling to a behavioural style based on cooperation and prosocial activities is also discussed.

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