Abstract
Children use emotional facial expressions of others for guiding their behavior, a process which is important to a child’s social-emotional development. Earlier studies on facial interaction demonstrate that imitation of emotional expressions of others is automatic, yet can be dynamically modulated depending on contextual information. Considering the value of emotional expressions for children especially, we tested whether and to what extent information about children’s temperament and domestic situation alters mimicry of their emotional expressions. Results show that angry expressions of children displaying negative behavior resulted in stronger imitation, which may serve as a corrective signal. Sad facial expressions resulted in stronger imitation towards those behaving positively but only when exposed to a difficult domestic situation, indicating increased empathy towards these children. These findings shed new light on the dynamic implicit communicative processes that shape interaction with children of different social-emotional backgrounds.
Highlights
Emotional facial expressions serve a critical communicative function in human social interaction [1]
We observed mimicry as indicated by increased activation of the zygomaticus major to happy expressions and increased corrugator supercilii activation to angry and sad facial expressions (Fig 2)
There was no effect of domestic situation on facial responses to angry children’s faces (Fig 3A)
Summary
Emotional facial expressions serve a critical communicative function in human social interaction [1]. Whereas joyful or interested facial expressions motivated children to cross a visual cliff, a mother’s facial expression of fear or anger refrained the children from crossing [5]. This process, whereby children use emotional expressions of others to guide and regulate their behavior is known as social referencing [6, 7], and it is thought to contribute to children’s socialization when growing up [8]. Emotional responses of caregivers to children’s emotions, and the caregivers own level of PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0167991 December 8, 2016
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