In this pre-registered study, we investigated whether facial
expressions were implicitly encoded when forming
impressions of others, and whether differences between people
in their encoding of angry and happy facial expressionswere
related to depressive symptoms. These questions were
addressed using the category confusion or Who Said What
(WSW) paradigm. Results indicated that both angry and happy
emotional expressions from human faces were encoded when
forming impressions of others, with no difference in strength
of encoding between both.We observed no evidence for
associations between encoding of angry or happy facial
expressions and depressive symptoms.
