454 v. AFFECTI vE PROCESSES
& DeSteno, 2016; Oveis, Horberg, & Kelt -
ner, 2010). Disgust-  prone people perceive 
impurity more readily in the actions of oth -
ers and are more likely to judge impure acts 
(e.g., leaving sweat on an exercise machine) 
as immoral (Horberg et al., 2009). This bias 
in attention to impurity is associated with 
specific outgroup prejudices, particularly 
toward gays (e.g., Tapias, Glaser, Vasquez, 
Keltner, & Wickens, 2007). Pride guides 
people to be more sensitive to status and 
to prefer meritocratic rather than equality- 
based distribution of resources (e.g., Hor -
berg, Kraus, & Keltner, 2013; Tracy et al., 
2014).
This brief review highlights the impact of 
specific emotions on every aspect of social 
cognition, from early and automatic atten -
tional processes to higher order, complex 
inferences about morality and justice. By 
implication, emotional traits should be char -
acterized by specific and distinct biases in 
perceiving the social environment. The em -
pirical evidence is increasingly converging 
with this broad claim.
Emotions Structure Social Interaction 
through  Action  Tendencies
At their core, emotions are about action ten -
dencies —propensities to respond to chal -
lenges and opportunities within the environ -
ment in ways that advance the individual’s 
goals (Frijda, 2017; Sznycer et al., 2016). The 
great majority of human goals and concerns 
involve our relationships with other people. 
Pride, at its core, is about signaling and ac -
quiring elevated rank within social hierar -
chies (Tracy et al., 2014). Embarrassment 
is about evoking forgiveness from others in 
the wake of a social transgression (Keltner 
& Buswell, 1997). Compassion prepares 
the body and mind to ameliorate suffering 
and promote the welfare of others in need 
(DeSteno, 2015; Goetz et al., 2010). Grati -
tude promotes sequences of actions that 
build strong reciprocal ties (Bartlett et al., 
2012). Emotion-  related action tendencies in -
volve both instrumental behaviors—  sharing 
resources, derogation, striking out—and 
signaling behaviors that prompt systematic 
responses from others in the social context 
(Keltner, Tracy, Sauter, Cordaro, & McNeil, 
2016).Guided by this thinking, a social function -
alist account has yielded many new insights 
into how emotional expression structures 
social interactions through the reactions 
and inferences they evoke in others in the 
social context (Niedenthal, Rychlowska, 
& Wood, 2017). Recent years have seen a 
shift in focus away from the extent to which 
specific nonverbal behaviors covary with 
reports of subjective emotional experience, 
toward the study of how expressive behav -
iors in the face, voice, and touch structure 
social interactions in dynamic and system -
atic ways. They do so, this literature reveals, 
by shifting the inferences and action tenden -
cies of people within the social environment 
(e.g., Keltner & Kring, 1998; Niedenthal & 
Brauer, 2012; Niedenthal et al., 2017; van 
Kleef, 2016). This thinking is in keeping 
with ethological studies of the basic patterns 
of social interaction in remote peoples (Eibl- 
Eibesfeldt, 1989). From these detailed and 
rich observations, ethologists argued that 
facial expressions, vocalizations, movements 
of the body, and patterns of touch coordi -
nate social interactions—  the soothing of a 
distressed child, flirtation between potential 
suitors, status conflicts in groups, exhila -
rating laughter and bonding among friends 
sharing stories.
Illustrative of a social functional approach 
to emotional expression is recent work by 
Paula Niedenthal, Ursula Hess, and their 
colleagues (Niedenthal, Mermillod, Maring -
er, & Hess, 2010; Niedenthal et al., 2017). 
They reason that within 500 milliseconds, 
people respond to the emotional expressions 
of others with mimetic behavior and physi -
ological reactions, triggering a cascade of 
neural, cognitive, and social reactions that 
structure interactions in systematic ways. 
For example, a warm, genuine smile evokes 
interaction partners’ feelings of pleasure, 
unconscious and automatic mimicry of the 
smile, inferences of agreeableness and hon -
esty, and cooperative behavior (e.g., Dan -
vers & Shiota, 2018; Maringer, Krumhuber, 
Fischer, & Niedenthal, 2011; Mehu, Little, 
& Dunbar, 2007). What is true of smiling is 
most certainly also true of emotional com -
munication by voice and touch: Expressions 
of emotion in these modalities set the stage 
for unfolding interactions between people 
over time.