FACIAL FEEDBACK and DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS 1 Demand Characteristics Moderate, but Do Not Fully Account For, the Effects of Faci
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FACIAL FEEDBACK AND DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS 1 Demand characteristics moderate, but do not fully account for, the effects of facial feedback on emotional experience Nicholas A. Coles1,2 (email), Lowell Gaertner2, Brooke Frohlich2, Jeff T. Larsen2, Dana M. Basnight-Brown3 1Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA 2Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA 3United States International University–Africa, Nairobi, Kenya Note: This article is a pre-print that is still being evaluated by peer reviewers. Please cite responsibly. FACIAL FEEDBACK AND DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS 2 Abstract The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that an individual’s facial expressions can influence their emotional experience (e.g., that smiling can make one feel happier). However, a reoccurring concern is that demand characteristics drive this effect. Across three experiments (n = 250, 192, 131), university students in the United States and Kenya posed happy, angry, and neutral expressions and self-reported their emotions following a demand characteristics manipulation. To manipulate demand characteristics we either (a) told participants we hypothesized their poses would influence their emotions, (b) told participants we hypothesized their poses would not influence their emotions, or (c) did not tell participants a hypothesis. Results indicated that demand characteristics moderated the effects of facial poses on self-reported emotion. However, facial poses still influenced self-reported emotion when participants were told we hypothesized their poses would not influence emotion. These results indicate that facial feedback effects are not solely an artifact of demand characteristics. Keywords: facial feedback hypothesis, demand characteristics, emotion, embodiment OSF page: https://osf.io/mdfu4/ FACIAL FEEDBACK AND DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS 3 One of the fundamental goals of the social and affective sciences is to understand the nature of emotional experience. According to many modern theories, emotional experience is partially built off afferent signals from the peripheral nervous system (Cacioppo, Berntson, & Klein, 1992; Damasio & Carvalho, 2013; Laird & Bresler, 1992; Levenson, Ekman, & Friesen, 1990; Russell, 1980; Scherer & Moors, 2019; Tomkins, 1962). If these theories are true, it should be possible to modify people’s emotional experiences by altering their peripheral nervous system activity. One of the most well-known demonstrations of this possibility comes from research examining the effects of sensorimotor facial feedback on emotional experience—i.e., the facial feedback hypothesis (Coles, Larsen, & Lench, 2019; Coles, March, et al., 2019; C. Izard, 1979; Strack, Martin, & Stepper, 1988). For example, previous research suggests that posing happy expressions causes people to feel happier and posing sad expressions causes them to feel sadder (Flack, 2006). Research on the facial feedback hypothesis is consistent with theories that posit afferent signals from the peripheral nervous system influence emotional experience. Based on this mechanism, many researchers suggest that facial feedback plays a critical role in in a variety of social and emotional processes, including: emotion recognition (Marmolejo-Ramos et al., 2020; Niedenthal, Mermillod, Maringer, & Hess, 2010; Wood, Rychlowska, Korb, & Niedenthal, 2016), social perception (Niedenthal, Barsalou, Lawrence Winkielman, Krauth-Gruber, & Ric, 2005), the experience of empathetic and vicarious emotions (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1992; Hoffman, 2001; Holland, Connell, & Dziobek, 2020), attitude contagion (Skinner, Osnaya, Patel, & Perry, 2020), the processing of emotional words and concepts (Neal & Chartrand, 2011; Niedenthal, 2007; Niedenthal, Winkielman, Mondillon, & Vermeulen, 2009; Winkielman, Coulson, & Niedenthal, 2018), and decision making (Carpenter & Niedenthal, 2020). However, a reoccurring concern is that facial feedback effects are merely an artifact of demand characteristics: cues that participants use to guess and adjust their behavior to fit the researcher’s hypothesis (Buck, 1980; Coles, Larsen, Kuribayashi, & Kuelz, 2019; Dimberg & Söderkvist, 2011; R. J. Larsen, Kasimatis, & Frey, 1992; Schimmack & Chen, 2017; Strack et al., 1988). For example, even if smiling does not increase happiness, participants may guess the hypothesis and adjust their happiness reports accordingly. We refer to this as the demand characteristics account. FACIAL FEEDBACK AND DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS 4 Demand characteristics are particularly concerning in facial feedback research because a recent meta-analysis indicated that 83% of studies have featured overt facial pose manipulations that may lead participants to guess the purpose of the study (Coles, Larsen, & Lench, 2019). For example, Schnall and Laird (2003) instructed participants to “Produce the facial expression that you would have when you were extremely happy,” which may have led participants to guess the purpose of the study and adjust their ratings accordingly (p. 790). To limit the impact of demand characteristics, the other 17% of studies have featured unobtrusive facial pose manipulations designed to hide the purpose of the study. For example, in a study ostensibly about psychomotor coordination, Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988) had participants view humorous cartoons while holding a pen in their mouth in a manner that either induced or inhibited smiling. Similarly, in a study ostensibly about facial muscle reaction times, Dimberg and Söderkvist (2011) asked participants to react to visual stimuli by contracting their zygomaticus major (smiling) or corrugator supercilii (scowling) facial muscles. In both studies, participants reported higher levels of positive emotions after smiling despite apparently being unaware of the purpose of the study. Studies that have featured unobtrusive facial pose manipulations, however, have yielded mixed results. For example, a collaborative effort involving 17 replication teams recently failed to replicate the pen-in-mouth effect (Wagenmakers et al., 2016; cf. Marsh et al., 2018; Noah et al., 2018). Furthermore, in a conceptual replication of Dimberg and Söderkvist (2011), Söderkvist, Ohlén, and Dimberg (2018) did not find that participants reported more positive reactions to pleasant stimuli after completing an unobtrusive smiling task. More broadly, even though Coles et al.’s (2019) meta-analysis indicated that facial feedback has a small effect on self-reported emotional experience, a subgroup analysis did not provide significant evidence of facial feedback effects among studies that featured unobtrusive facial pose manipulations. Consequently, concerns about the demand characteristics account persist. Overview of Present Studies Whereas previous facial feedback researchers have strived to limit demand characteristics, the present set of studies feature a different tactic: the manipulation of demand characteristics (J. T. Larsen & McGraw, 2011; Nichols & Maner, 2008; Veitch, Gifford, & Hine, 1991). Prior to posing happy, angry, and neutral expressions and self-reporting their emotions, participants across three studies were randomly assigned to one of three demand characteristics FACIAL FEEDBACK AND DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS 5 conditions. In the positive expectation conditions, we told participants we expected their facial poses to influence their emotions. In the null expectation conditions, we told participants we did not expect their facial poses to influence their emotions (i.e., that we expect null effects). In the control conditions, we did not provide participants with information about a hypothesis. According to the facial feedback hypothesis, participants should report feeling (a) happier after posing happy vs. angry or neutral expressions, and (b) angrier after posing angry vs. happy or neutral expressions. According to the demand characteristics account, the effects of posed expressions on emotion will be largest in the positive expectation condition and non-existent in the null expectation condition. Another possibility is that both facial feedback and demand effects occur in concert, wherein the effects of posed expressions on emotion are attenuated but significant in the null expectation condition. In other words, demand characteristics may moderate the effects of posed expressions on reported emotion but not be necessary for these facial feedback effects to emerge. We pre-registered predictions consistent with the demand characteristics account in Study 1, expecting to not find evidence of facial feedback effects in the null expectation condition. Based on contradictory evidence in Study 1, we pre-registered predictions in Studies 2 and 3 that were consistent with the notion that facial feedback and demand characteristics effects occur in concert. There are three reasons we manipulated demand characteristics in the current set of studies. First, amid ongoing debates about the replicability of studies that have featured unobtrusive facial feedback manipulations, we sought a novel and potentially more robust approach for studying the role of demand characteristics. Second, manipulating demand characteristics allowed us to assess causality. Consistent with the demand characteristics account, previous correlational research suggests that the effects of posed expressions on emotion are larger among participants who are aware of the study purpose (Coles, March, et al., 2019). Alternatively, though, experiencing stronger facial feedback effects may cause participants