Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile: A nonobtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis.

Abstract

We investigated the hypothesis that people's facial activity influences their affective responses. Two studies were designed to both eliminate methodological problems of earlier experiments and clarify theoretical ambiguities, This was achieved by having subjects hold a pen in their mouth in ways that either inhibited or facilitated the muscles typically associated with smiling without requiring subjects to pose in a smiling face. Study 1 's results demonstrated the effectiveness of the procedure. Subjects reported more intense humor responses when cartoons were presented under facilitating conditions than under inhibiting conditions that precluded labeling of the facial expression in emotion categories. Study 2 served to further validate the methodology and to answer additional theoretical questions. The results replicated Study 1 's findings and also showed that facial feedback operates on the affective but not on the cognitive component of the humor response. Finally, the results suggested that both inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms may have contributed to the observed affective responses. Research on the role of peripheral physiological reactions in the experience of emotion has placed its main emphasis on the influence of facial muscular activity. A great number of studies have dealt with whether and how people's facial expressions influence their affective experience. The basic hypothesis of these studies is derived from Darwin's (1872) early contention that an emotion that is freely expressed by outward signs will be intensified, whereas an emotion whose expression is repressed will be softened (p. 22). In other words, Darwin suggested that in the presence of an eliciting emotional stimulus a person's emotional experience can be either strengthened or attenuated depending on whether it is or is not accompanied by the appropriate muscular activity. Darwin's statement is the predecessor of the current facial