Abstract
Self-focus is a type of cognitive processing that maintains negative emotions. Moreover, bodily feedback is also essential for maintaining emotions. This study investigated the effect of interactions between self-focused attention and facial expressions on emotions. The results indicated that control facial expression manipulation after self-focus reduced happiness scores. On the contrary, the smiling facial expression manipulation after self-focus increased happiness scores marginally. However, facial expressions did not affect positive emotions after the other-focus manipulation. These findings suggest that self-focus plays a pivotal role in facial expressions’ effect on positive emotions. However, self-focusing is insufficient for decreasing positive emotions, and the interaction between self-focus and facial expressions is crucial for developing positive emotions.
Highlights
Self-focusing is a cognitive activity that modulates emotional states
No participants were aware of the purpose of the facial expression manipulation
An ANOVA conducted on happy scores showed a significant interaction between facial expression and time, F (1, 60) = 6.35, p < .05, η2p = .10 (Fig 1)
Summary
Self-focusing is a cognitive activity that modulates emotional states. Numerous studies have suggested that self-focus is related to negative emotions [2] and clinical disorders [1]. Ingram [1], in a review of self-focus and psychopathology, suggested that self-focus is associated with depression, and several psychopathologies, including anxiety, substance abuse, schizophrenia, and psychopathy. The degree of private self-consciousness, which is defined as the tendency to attend to one’s feelings and thoughts, was associated with state-anxiety, trait-anxiety, and worry in a healthy population [3]. Case studies of anxiety disorder patients have indicated that procedures evoking external attentional focus by shifting attention away from self-focus improve symptoms [4, 5]
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