Abstract
Recent findings suggest a role of oxytocin on the tendency to spontaneously mimic the emotional facial expressions of others. Oxytocin-related increases of facial mimicry, however, seem to be dependent on contextual factors. Given previous literature showing that people preferentially mimic emotional expressions of individuals associated with high (vs. low) rewards, we examined whether the reward value of the mimicked agent is one factor influencing the oxytocin effects on facial mimicry. To test this hypothesis, 60 male adults received 24 IU of either intranasal oxytocin or placebo in a double-blind, between-subject experiment. Next, the value of male neutral faces was manipulated using an associative learning task with monetary rewards. After the reward associations were learned, participants watched videos of the same faces displaying happy and angry expressions. Facial reactions to the emotional expressions were measured with electromyography. We found that participants judged as more pleasant the face identities associated with high reward values than with low reward values. However, happy expressions by low rewarding faces were more spontaneously mimicked than high rewarding faces. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find a significant direct effect of intranasal oxytocin on facial mimicry, nor on the reward-driven modulation of mimicry. Our results support the notion that mimicry is a complex process that depends on contextual factors, but failed to provide conclusive evidence of a role of oxytocin on the modulation of facial mimicry.
Highlights
Facial mimicry is defined as the automatic imitation of emotional facial expressions of others
Facial mimicry is distinguished from other affective processes that may lead to congruent facial reactions, such as emotional contagion or affective empathy, in that mimicked facial expressions reflect the sharing of the emotional displays, rather than a response to the other’s emotional state (Hess and Blairy, 2001; Hess and Fischer, 2014)
Results from this study add to the evidence that facial mimicry is influenced by the reward value of the interactant, and reinforces the notion of mimicry as a context-specific social process
Summary
Facial mimicry is defined as the automatic imitation of emotional facial expressions of others. Pre-existing social bonds, goals to affiliate, similarity, positive mood, and a pro-social orientation have been shown to increase the tendency to mimic (see Seibt et al, 2015 for a review of social modulators of facial mimicry). These observations have motivated the notion of mimicry as a context-specific social process that occurs when there is a motivation to affiliate with the other person (Fischer and Hess, 2017) or when the interaction with the other would increase social wellbeing (Wang and Hamilton, 2012)
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