Abstract
When people are being evaluated, their whole body responds. Verbal feedback causes robust activation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. What about nonverbal evaluative feedback? Recent discoveries about the social functions of facial expression have documented three morphologically distinct smiles, which serve the functions of reinforcement, social smoothing, and social challenge. In the present study, participants saw instances of one of three smile types from an evaluator during a modified social stress test. We find evidence in support of the claim that functionally different smiles are sufficient to augment or dampen HPA axis activity. We also find that responses to the meanings of smiles as evaluative feedback are more differentiated in individuals with higher baseline high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), which is associated with facial expression recognition accuracy. The differentiation is especially evident in response to smiles that are more ambiguous in context. Findings suggest that facial expressions have deep physiological implications and that smiles regulate the social world in a highly nuanced fashion.
Highlights
Sweaty palms, a racing heart, a faltering voice
Scientific inquiry has largely been limited to investigations of the manner in which the body responds to verbal evaluative feedback, of the type “that was/wasn’t good.”[5,6] Does the HPA axis respond to purely nonverbal feedback, such as facial expression? We investigate this question and demonstrate that evaluators’ smiles are sufficient to augment or dampen HPA axis activity – depending upon the distinct meaning of the smile in the social-evaluative context
We find that physiological responses to smile meaning are most differentiated in individuals with higher baseline high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), which is associated with facial expression recognition accuracy[7,8,9]
Summary
A racing heart, a faltering voice. Most people find the evaluative context of public speaking unpleasant. The first aim of the present research was to test the hypothesis that reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles, delivered as evaluative feedback, influence perceivers’ HPA axis activity in a manner congruent with their distinct social meaning. Individuals who are more accurate at recognizing facial expressions should exhibit more differentiated physiological activity in response to affiliation and dominance smiles, indicating greater sensitivity to their social-evaluative meanings. We tested the hypothesis that individuals with higher baseline HF-HRV exhibit more differentiated physiological activity in response to smiles presented as evaluative feedback, in response to smiles that are more ambiguous in context (i.e., affiliation and dominance smiles). Physiological activity, in both the HPA axis and cardiovascular system, was assessed throughout the study; salivary cortisol was measured at seven time points, and a continuous electrocardiograph was collected before, during, and after the speech task
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