The theory of facial feedback: gestures that create emotions

The facial feedback theory proposes that facial movements associated with a certain emotion can influence affective experiences. It is one of the most representative theories of the psychological study of emotions and cognition, which is why it continues to be constantly discussed and experimented with.

In this article We will see what the facial feedback theory is, how it was defined and what have been some of its experimental verifications.

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Facial feedback theory Does the movement of the face create emotions?

The relationship between cognition and affective experiences has been widely studied in psychology. Among other things, attempts have been made to explain how emotions occur, how we make them conscious, and what their function is both individually and socially.

Some research in this field suggests that affective experiences occur after we cognitively process a stimulus associated with an emotion. In turn, the latter would generate a series of facial reactions, for example a smile, which reflect the emotion we are experiencing.

However, the facial feedback theory, or facial feedback theory, suggests that the opposite phenomenon can also occur: make movements with the facial muscles related to a certain emotion, has a significant impact on how we experience it; even without the need for intermediary cognitive processing.

It is called facial "feedback" theory precisely because it suggests that muscle activation of the face can generate sensory feedback to the brain; question that finally allows us to consciously experience and process an emotion.

• Related article: "Emotional psychology: main theories of emotion"

Background and related researchers

The theory of facial feedback has its antecedents in the theories of the end of the 19th century, which prioritized the role of muscle activation with the subjective experience of emotions.

These studies continue to this day, and have developed significantly since the 1970s. 60's, moment in which the theories on affectivity take on special relevance in the social sciences and cognitive.

In a compilation on the background of the facial feedback theory, Rojas (2016) reports that in the year 1962, American psychologist Silvan Tomkins proposed that the sensory feedback carried out by the muscles of the face, and the sensations of the skin, can generate an experience or emotional state without the need for intercession cognitive. This represented the first major antecedent of facial feedback theory.

Later the theories of Tournages and Ellsworth were added, in 1979, who spoke of the modulation hypothesis mediated by proprioception, which constitutes another of the great antecedents of the definition of this theory. from the same decade the works carried out by Paul Ekman and Harrieh Oster are also recognized on emotions and facial expressions.

Between the decades of the 80's and 90's many other researchers followed, who have carried out numerous experiments to verify if indeed the muscular movements can activate affective experiences determined. We will develop below some of the most recent ones, as well as the theoretical updates that have derived from them.

The paradigm of the pen held

In 1988, Fritz Strack, Leonard L. Martin and Sabine Stepper conducted a study where they asked participants to watch a series of funny cartoons. Meanwhile, a part of them was asked to hold a pen with their lips. The others were asked the same, but with their teeth.

The previous request had a reason: the facial posture that is made when holding a pen between the teeth contracts the zygomaticus major muscle, which we use to smile, which favors the smiling facial expression. Conversely, facial movement made with the pen between the lips contracts the orbicularis muscle, which inhibits the muscle activity necessary to smile.

In this way, the researchers measured the facial activity associated with smiling, and wanted to see if the subjective experience of joy was related to said activity. The result was that the people who held the pen with their teeth reported that cartoons were funnier than those people who held the pen with their lips.

The conclusion was that the facial expressions associated with some emotion can effectively transform the subjective experience of said emotion; even when people are not fully aware of the facial gestures they are making.

Is facial feedback inhibited when we are watched?

In the year 2016, almost three decades after the Strack, Martin and Stepper experiment, the psychologist and mathematician Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, replicates the pen experiment with his collaborators sustained.

To everyone's surprise, they found insufficient evidence to support the effect of facial feedback. In response, Fritz Strack explained that Wagenmakers' experiment had been performed with a variable that was not present in the original study, which surely had affected and determined the new results.

Said variable was a video camera that recorded the activity of each of the participants.. According to Strack, the experience of feeling observed caused by the video camera would have significantly modified the effect of facial feedback.

The effect of external observation on affective experience

Given the previous controversy, Tom Noah, Yaacov Schul and Ruth Mayo (2018) replicated the study again, first using a camera and then omitting its use. As part of their conclusions, they propose that, far from being exclusive, the studies by Strack and Wagenmakers are consistent with theories that explain how feeling observed affects internal cues related to the most basic activity; in this case with facial feedback.

In their investigations they verified that the effect of facial feedback is noticeably present when there is no electronic device recording (Therefore, participants are not concerned about monitoring their activity).

On the contrary, the effect diminishes when the participants know that they are being monitored by means of the video camera. The inhibition of the effect is explained as follows: the experience of feeling observed creates the need to conform to external expectations, for which internal information is not available or is not prepared.

Thus, Noah, Schul and Mayo (2018) concluded that the presence of the camera led the participants to adopt the position of a third perspective on the situation, and consequently, they generated less attunement to the facial feedback of their own muscles.