DePaul Discoveries
Volume 3 Issue 1 Article 5
2014
Examining the Relationships between Empathy, Mood, and Facial Mimicry
Catherine Rehberger [email protected]
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Recommended Citation Rehberger, Catherine (2014) "Examining the Relationships between Empathy, Mood, and Facial Mimicry," DePaul Discoveries: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/depaul-disc/vol3/iss1/5
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Science and Health at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Discoveries by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Examining the Relationships between Empathy, Mood, and Facial Mimicry
Acknowledgements Dr. Linda Camras, Emotion-Cognition Psychology Department, Winter Quarter 2014, [email protected]
This article is available in DePaul Discoveries: https://via.library.depaul.edu/depaul-disc/vol3/iss1/5 Rehberger: Examining the Relationships between Empathy, Mood, and Facial Mim
Examining the Relationships between Empathy, Mood, and Facial Mimicry
Catherine Rehberger* Department of Psychology
ABSTRACT Facial mimicry is an automatic process that may occur as we see facial expression and respond congruently with a similar expression (van Baaren, Fockenberg, Holland, Janssen, & van Knippenberg, 2006). Empathy is the capacity to take on and understand another’s emotions (Hojat et al., 2002). While positive relationships between mimicry and empathy have been previously established, less is known regarding the interrelations among state affect, empathy, and facial mimicry. The present study examined these relationships in a single sample. While positive relationships were found between empathy and state affect, empathy and state affect did not have an effect on facial mimicry.
INTRODUCTION Facial mimicry has been defined as an automatic process that may occur as we see a facial relation to facial mimicry. If facial mimicry expression and respond congruently with a enables individuals to feel what the other person similar facial expression (Chartrand & Bargh, is feeling more effectively, then facial mimicry 1999). For example, Dimberg, Andréasson, and may potentially increase their empathy. Still, Thunberg (2011) found that observing facial few studies have examined how mood affects expressions resulted in corresponding facial empathic capacity. Moreover, no previous study expressions in the viewer. Several perspectives has examined the relations between empathy, propose that mimicking expressions allows non-induced mood states, and facial mimicry individuals to recognize and, in turn, understand with all being the primary variables of interest the feelings of those they are observing and in the same sample. Thus, the overarching (Niedenthal, 2007). Given that facial expressions goal of this study is to attempt to replicate and commonly serve a communicative function of advance the previous findings regarding the signaling to others of how an individual is relations among mood, mimicry, and empathy. feeling, mood is a variable often investigated in ______EMG and Facial Mimicry * Faculty Advisor: Dr. Linda Camras Facial mimicry is considered to be a rapid- Department of Psychology acting, automatic process (Chartrand & Bargh, Research Completed in Winter 2014 1999). For instance, exposure to happy and Author Contact: [email protected]
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angry expressions for 30milliseconds resulted in perspective, this process takes place as respective Zygomaticus major and Corrugator individuals experience emotions after making supercillii activity, even though participants did facial expressions congruent with that emotion. not recall having seen the expression (Dimberg, Thus when one automatically mimics the Thunberg, & Elmebed, 2000). Furthermore, the expression of another person, they are better facial muscle movements involved in mimicry able to understand what the other person is may be weak and result in little visible change in feeling. the appearance of the face. Thus the majority of An empirical examination of the relation research on mimicry uses electromyography between mimicry and emotional contagion was (EMG). Two target muscles have been of conducted by Hess and Blairy (2001), yielding primary interest; the Corrugator supercillii and results that demonstrated that observers Zygomaticus major (e.g., Dimberg, Andréasson, experienced the observed emotional expressions & Thunberg, 2011). The facial expressions of only when the target was sad or happy, and not most negative emotions (e.g., anger, disgust, and when they were afraid, angry, or surprised. fear) consist of Corrugator supercillii muscle Interestingly, facial mimicry still occurred when activation, while the Zygomaticus major participants were viewing expressions of all muscle’s activity corresponds to the smiling emotions. associated with the emotion of joy. EMPATHY AND MOOD MOOD AND MIMICRY Likowski and colleagues (2011) found that Previous research has examined relations participants who underwent the happy mood between mood and mimicry. Van Baaren and induction showed marginally higher empathy colleagues (2006) found that individuals in a scores over those in the sad mood induction. The negative mood were less likely to mimic lack of statistical significance and the moderate observed expressions. Utilizing effect size suggests that more work is needed in electromyography, Likowski et al. (2011) found order to determine if individuals who are in a that individuals in a sad mood had little to no sad mood have a reduced capacity to empathize facial reactions in response to happy, angry, and with others. sad faces. In contrast, individuals induced to feel happiness had more intense and congruent THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF THE MOOD- facial expressions (demonstrating facial MIMICRY RELATIONSHIP mimicry) in response to happy, sad, and angry There are two theories posed to explain why faces. Specifically, an increase in Zygomaticus individuals in sad moods have lower levels of major activity and decrease in Corrugator facial mimicry (for review, see Likowski et al., supercillii activity was observed when the happy 2011). The affect as information theory posits participants were viewing the happy faces. that an upset mood is indicative of a threat in the When viewing the angry or sad faces, happy environment, which makes the individual act participants showed an increase in Corrugator more deliberately and, in turn, suppress supercillii activity and decrease in Zygomaticus automatic processes like facial mimicry activity (Likowski, et al., 2011). (Schwarz & Clore, 1996). Attention focus EMPATHY AND MIMICRY theory instead argues that when a person is in a sad mood they are more internally focused Facial mimicry is attributed to facilitating our because they are trying to discern the cause of ability to empathize with others (Hatfield, their emotional state, therefore making them less Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994). The relation receptive to external stimuli (for discussion, see: between facial responses and empathy was first Likowski et al., 2011). Accordingly, Reinholdt- investigated by Lipps (1907), who proposed a Dunne (2013) found that depression is “shared affect perspective” through a mimicry- associated with less attention control. Because a feedback mechanism. He claimed that facial negative mood is in some ways similar to having mimicry facilitates the recognition of the a minor episode of depression, one would expect emotion (Lipps, 1907). According to Lipps’
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to see similar attention deficits in a person who 2009). An average empathy score will be reports feeling more negative affect. calculated for each participant. THE PRESENT STUDY Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The 20-item PANAS was used to measure The present study seeks to build on Likowski, participants’ current mood both before and after Weyers, Pauli, and Seibt (2011) and corroborate the study. The PANAS was chosen to measure the relationships between mood and empathy, affect to maintain consistency with Likowski et empathy and facial mimicry, and mood and al. (2011). Participants rated the extent to which facial mimicry. The first hypothesis predicts that they were feeling emotions attributed to positive individuals who report higher levels of negative affect (i.e. alert, excited, and inspired) and affect will have lower empathy scores and will negative affect (i.e. upset or nervous) on a scale mimic the happy, angry, and fearful facial of 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely) expressions less. This prediction is based on the (Watson & Clark, 1994). research of Likowski, Weyers, and colleagues (2011), which demonstrated that an induced Picture mimicry task. To examine facial negative affective state moderately diminished mimicry, participants completed a computerized the capacity to empathize with others, which in picture identification task that was generated turn was believed to reduce the automatic using E-Prime software. The pictures task was mimicry response to facial expressions. The an adapted go-no-go task that contained a total second hypothesis states that higher positive of 18 blocks. In each block, participants viewed moods will predict higher rates of empathy, thus four faces for 800ms with a 1000ms crosshair associating with increased mimicry. This study (to serve as a proximal baseline) in between could provide support for attention focus theory each face. In the first six blocks, participants if individuals in a negative mood report lower were instructed to press the spacebar every time empathy, and/or show reduced levels of they saw a specific facial expression. These mimicry, therefore demonstrating that they are blocks were comprised of three affective potentially more internally focused. expressions and one neutral expression (one METHODS gender was shown per block so that there were three male and three female blocks). The PARTICIPANTS participants were told before the block was presented to press the spacebar every time they The sample included 19 students from a private saw a happy face. For the second set of six university who are required to participate in blocks, participants were told to press the research studies for their classes. spacebar when they saw the specified gender, MEASURES being either a man or woman. These blocks consisted of four pictures again, except this time Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ). To the models would show a single facial measure empathic capacities, participants expression per block (i.e. all angry) and the completed the 16-item Toronto Empathy blocks would either consist of three females and Questionnaire (Spreng, McKinnon, Mar, & one male or three males and one female. In the Levine, 2009). The questionnaire required last six blocks, participants were told to view the participants to rate their responses to items on a faces shown to them on the screen without scale of 0 (never) to 4 (always). Sample items pressing the spacebar. These blocks also include “When someone else is feeling excited, I consisted of three affective faces of one neutral tend to get excited too” and “I am not really face. interested in how other people feel.” The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire has shown an Facial affect stimuli. In the picture internal consistency of α = 0.87 and high test- identification task, participants were shown retest reliability (r= 0.81, p < .001) in a previous pictures of faces that were retrieved from the study (Spreng, McKinnon, Mar, & Levine, FACES database (Ebner, Riediger, & Lindenberger, 2010). Twenty-four total photos
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were used from eight different models (four men p = .28. Lastly, no significant differences were and four women), each making a happy, neutral, found between participants with low (M = .26, fearful, and angry facial expression. SD = .50) and high empathy (M = .95, SD = 1.90) for Corrugator supercillii activity in Electromyography (EMG). EMG response to angry expressions, t(18) = 0.30, p = equipment was attached to participants in .30. accordance with Fridlund and Cacioppo (1986). The first score indicated Zygomaticus major Further t-tests were conducted to determine if activity while viewing happy faces, the second facial mimicry depended on the mood of the indicated Corrugator supercillii activity while participants. Unfortunately, there was not viewing fearful faces, and the third indicated enough variance in the participants’ negative Corrugator supercillii activity when viewing affect averages as scores only ranged from 1.0 to angry faces. 1.9, so a median split was conducted on the positive affect average instead. An average of PROCEDURE 2.9 or less indicated a less positive mood (n = 9) Upon arrival, participants signed a consent form while those in a greater positive mood (n = 10) notifying them of the study’s procedure. The had a score of 3.0 and above. No significant EMG sensors were then attached and calibrated. differences were found for the Zygomaticus Participants filled out the first PANAS and then major activity in response to happy expressions completed the three mimicry tasks. Lastly, between participants with low (M = 0.86, SD = participants completed the second PANAS, the 1.28) and high positive affect (M = 0.49, SD = TEQ, and demographics form. The researchers 1.45), t(18) = 0.63 p = .57. Similarly no then removed the EMG sensors. significant differences were found between RESULTS participants with low (M = 1.10, SD = 1.77) and high positive affect (M = 0.05, SD = 0.78) for Correlations were conducted to examine the Corrugator supercillii activity in response to the relationships between mood and empathy. fearful expressions t(18) = 0.11, p = .11. Lastly, Significant positive relationships were found no significant differences were found between between empathy and the negative affect as participants with low (M = 1.13, SD = 1.75) and measured by the first PANAS (r = .49, p < .05). high positive affect (M = 0.17, SD = 0.93) for Furthermore, empathy was positively related to Corrugator supercillii activity in response to the average of positive affect scores on the first angry expressions, t(18) = 0.57, p = .15. PANAS (r = .75, p< 0.01). DISCUSSION To examine group differences in facial mimicry, This study examined relationships among a median split was carried out to distinguish empathy, mood, and facial mimicry. Overall, high from low levels of empathy in our sample. some relationships were found between empathy An empathy score of 3.0 or lower characterized and mood, but there were no significant relations low empathy (n = 9) and a score of 3.1 and between empathy and mimicry or mood and above was indicative of high empathy (n = 10). mimicry. An independent samples test was run again with high and low empathy being the independent Before the median split was conducted, the variables of interest. No significant differences positive correlation between negative affect and were found for the Zygomaticus major activity empathy indicated that the more negative an in response to happy expressions between individual’s mood, the more empathic they participants with low (M = .37, SD= .95) and became. This result fails to support our first high empathy (M = .93, SD = 1.63), t(18) = 0.39, hypothesis and thus the attention focus theory, p = .39. Similarly, no significant differences which proposed that people in a negative mood were found between participants with low (M = are more internally focused on the source of .17, SD = .63) and high empathy (M = .89, SD= their mood, making them less empathetic (for 1.83) for Corrugator supercillii activity in review see: Likowski et al., 2011). The response to the fearful expressions, t(18) = 0.28, hypothesis that higher positive affect predicts
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higher levels of empathy was supported and Future examinations of mood, empathy, and remained consistent with past findings of a mimicry should strive to utilize dynamic facial moderately significant relationship between stimuli rather than static images, which may positive affect and empathy (Likowski et al., elicit higher rates of mimicry and add to the real- 2011). The results did not support the world applicability of the findings. Furthermore, hypotheses regarding the predicted relations the lack of variability in participants’ negative between mood and mimicry and empathy and affect suggests that future examinations of the mimicry. The present lack of significant findings relations among mood, mimicry, and empathy can potentially be attributed to the small sample may benefit from the use of mood inductions. size, as past studies have reported significant Overall, this study furthered previous knowledge relationships between mood and mimicry as well regarding the relations among empathy and as empathy and mimicry. Technical issues with mood, in that both positive and negative affect the electromyography equipment prevented was associated with high rates of empathy. analysis of data for a significant number of
participants, resulting in a small sample size.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’m very grateful Dr. Linda Camras agreed to be my adviser so that I could participate in the Undergraduate Summer Research Program to carry out this project. I’m also thankful Dr. Joe Mikels allowed me to use his lab and physiological equipment in order to collect my data.
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