I can see it on your face. The conscious and unconscious traces of emotional reactions when learning about the silenced Italian colonial crimes

Methodological advances in the field of study focusing on the facial expressions of emotions allowed to detect micro-expressions of emotion that happen for less than a quarter of a second. These leaking signals let emotional reactions to become transiently visible, even when individuals want to hide them or are not completely aware of them (Ekman & Friesen, 1978). The Facial Acting Coding System (FACS) is a valuable coding system enabling to observe both expressions and micro-expressions of emotions (Ekman, Friesen, & Hager, 1978; Hager, Ekman, & Friesen, 2002). It allows for grasping the first emotional reactions to an emotional stimulus, i.e. surprise, fear, joy, sadness, anger, disgust, and contempt. Using the FACS analysis, this paper aims at observing the expressions and micro-expressions of emotions that appear on the face of young Italian participants when presented, for the first time, with information about war crimes committed by the Italian Army against Ethiopian people. Among these immediate reactions, while anger could easily be expected due to the threat to the moral image of the in-group, contempt is particularly intriguing, since this moral emotion can be elicited only if negative judgments about shameful behaviours of other human beings were immediately expressed during the reading. Qualitative observations of such emotional expression and micro-expression, unobtrusively collected during the reading of a text on Italian colonial crimes, are discussed, paying a particular attention to the expression of contempt and anger.