Benefits of humor in reduction of threat-induced anxiety

The benefits of humor in reducing anxiety were investigated in a laboratory study, in which subjects were falsely led to believe that they would receive a shock in 12 min. Participants were 53 undergraduate students with either high or low sense of humor as measured by the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire of Martin and Lefcourt (1984). During the anticipatory period, subjects listened to either a humorous tape, a nonhumorous tape, or no tape. Dependent variables were repeated measures of self-reported anxiety, heart rate, and zygomatic facial activity. Anxiety increased over the anticipatory period, as predicted. A significant interaction between condition and time indicated that subjects from the humor condition consistently rated themselves as less anxious and reported less increase in stress as the shock approached. A three-way interaction concentrating on the final 3 min. indicated a tendency for subjects with low sense of humor to have higher heart rates in the no-tape condition than in the humorous or nonhumorous tape conditions. Analysis for zygomatic activity indicated more smiling by subjects with high sense of humor and by subjects in the humor condition. Also, the humorous tape elicited more smiling by subjects with high sense of humor.     

企业幽默能否化解消费者抱怨:幽默类型与关系范式的匹配

幽默可以促进沟通效果,实践中许多企业运用幽默来回应消费者抱怨。然而既有文献对于幽默能否以及如何有效化解抱怨缺乏系统深入的研究。本文则基于良性冲突理论与关系范式理论探究了企业幽默式抱怨回应策略对不同关系范式下消费者的影响。通过二手数据分析和实验法,本文发现:对于唤醒度较低的负面情感导致的消费者抱怨,企业幽默(相较于非幽默)的抱怨回应策略更有助于改善消费者品牌态度;而且,不同类型的幽默化回应作用不同,自强型幽默的抱怨回应对改善共有关系范式下消费者品牌态度更有效,自嘲型幽默的抱怨回应则有助于改善共有和交易关系范式下消费者的品牌态度;幽默回应策略与关系范式通过影响消费者的良性评价而作用于品牌态度。     

Facial expressions,smile types,and self-report during humour,tickle, and pain

The nature of ticklish smiling and the possible emotional state that accompanies it have been pondered since the ancient Greeks. The present study is arguably the first to systematically examine facial behaviour and self-reports of emotion in response to tickling. Using a within-participants design, 84 participants' responses to being tickled were compared to their responses when experiencing a painful stimulus and their responses to comedy. Overall results for both self-report and facial action coding showed that the tickle condition elicited both pleasure and displeasure. Facial action during tickling included “Duchenne” smiles plus movements associated with negative emotions. Results suggest that tickle-induced smiling can be dissociated from positive affect. Accounts of tickle are discussed.     

Will the real relationship between facial expression and affective experience please stand up: The case of exhilaration

Abstract

It is hypothesised that the empirical correlation between facial expression and affective experience varies as a function of the correlational design used to compute the coefficients. Predictions about the rank order of five designs were derived based on two assumptions. Female subjects were placed into one of three alcohol conditions (no ethanol, low dose, high dose) and were exposed to 30 slides containing jokes or cartoons. The degree of rated funniness and overt behaviour were intercorrelated using five different designs to analyse the same set of data. The results show that within-subject analyses yielded higher coefficients than between-subjects analyses. Aggregation of data increased the coefficients for within-subject analyses, but not for between-subject analyses. A cheerful mood was associated with hyper-expressiveness, i.e. the occurrence of smiling and laughter at relatively low levels of perceived funniness. It was demonstrated that low correlations between facial expression and affective experience may be based on several method artefacts.     

Misattribution theory of tendentious humor

Male and female subjects were treated rudely or in a normal manner by a female experimenter in order to establish (a) a negative or (b) a neutral affective disposition toward her. Subjects then witnessed her in one of three conditions: (a) She experienced a misfortune that was associated with innocuous humor cues; (b) she experienced the same misfortune, but the humor cues were not present; (c) the same humor cues were present, but no misfortune was experienced. Subjects' facial expressions of mirth were unobtrusively recorded and later coded by naive judges. No appreciable sex differences in mirth were found. Negative dispositions led to greater mirth reactions to the misfortune than neutral dispositions whether or not humor cues were associated with than misfortune. The dispositional variation was of no consequence in the reactions to humor cues as such, however. Under conditions of neutral disposition, mirth in response to the misfortune plus the humor cues was the sum of the mirth reactions to the component parts in isolation. Under conditions of negative disposition, mirth in response to the combination of misfortune and humor cues exceeded the sum of the responses to the components. A misattribution theory of tendentious humor was developed from Freudian thinking, and the findings were considered to be consistent with it although not definitive. Additionally, the findings were considered to give further support to the disposition theory of mirth.     

Understanding the effects of exposure to humor expressing affiliative and aggressive motivations

Using humor, being funny, and having a good sense of humor are often reported as desirable qualities. However, little attention has been paid to possible differences in responses to humor reflecting affiliative as opposed to aggressive motivations. In evaluating a stranger, when examples of affiliative and aggressive humor were presented as the stranger’s preferred humor, aggressive humor led to more negative impressions (Study 1). To further explore the impact of humor reflecting affiliative versus aggressive motivations, participants were exposed to equally funny videotapes representing the two humor styles (Study 2). Women’s reported affective experiences varied across the humor styles, but men’s did not. Women and men rated the affiliative video as being more positive than negative, but no differences in the qualities were found for the aggressive video. Results across the two studies demonstrate the importance of considering not just the funniness of humor efforts, but also the social motives conveyed by the humor. Given the complexity of responses to humor, additional research is needed to better understand the contexts within which being funny might have social benefits versus social costs.     

The effect of humorous instructional materials on interest in a math task

Two studies tested the effect of humor, embedded in learning materials, on task interest. College student participants (N _{Study 1} = 359, N _{Study 2} = 172) learned a new math technique with the presence or absence of humor in the learning program and/or test instructions. Individual interest in math was measured initially and also tested as a factor. The results showed that the effect of humor in the learning program depended on individual interest in math. Humor raised task interest for those with low individual interest in math but slightly lowered task interest for those with high individual interest in math. Mediating variables of this effect were tested across both studies. Although the mediating variables showed inconsistency, humor may affect task interest through affective responses immediately following the instruction, rather than in subsequent interaction with the task.     

The impact of rewards on empathic accuracy and emotional mimicry

The notion that motivation influences empathic accuracy has been inferred from aspects of the task, the situation or the relationship between interaction partners or between groups. The present research assessed whether monetary reward influences cognitive and affective empathy. In Study 1, cognitive empathy was assessed for 42 participants who decoded briefly (33 ms) presented expressions of sadness and anger. For half the participants, correctly decoded expressions on male faces were rewarded, for the other half correctly decoded expressions on female faces were rewarded. The results showed that rewards increase empathic accuracy for both emotions equally. In Study 2, facial EMG was measured as well to assess emotional mimicry as an index of affective empathy. Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1 and found a moderation of affective empathy as indexed through facial mimicry for sadness. Thus, simple monetary rewards affect both cognitive and affective empathy.     

Predicting Affective Responses to Unexpected Outcomes

In decisions under uncertainty, decision makers confront two uncertainties: the uncertain linkage between actions and outcomes and the uncertain linkage between these outcomes and his or her affective responses to them. The two studies reported here examine affective responses to expected and unexpected outcomes in various settings. In Study 1, a scenario-based laboratory experiment (N = 149), we examined subjects' predicted responses to a range of outcomes, as a function of how surprising the outcome was. Study 2, a field study (N = 127), involved the expectations of bowlers about their scores in an upcoming game and about their responses to various outcomes at, above, and below expectations. We also measured actual affective reactions after the bowlers had completed their games. Findings suggest that subjects both expect and experience a loss-averse, expectation-based value function broadly of the Prospect Theory type. They also anticipate, and experience, an amplifying effect of outcome surprise, though they underestimate its size. We argue that such underestimation, together with overtight prediction ranges, may expose subjects to much larger affective variation with outcome variability than they anticipate.     

The effects of facial control and facial mimicry on subjective reactions to comedy routines

The impact of facial control on subjective reactions to dubbed (created with inserts of smiling people) and undubbed comedy routines was examined. The presence of dubs increased EMG activity over thezygomaticus major andorbicularis oculi muscle regions for spontaneous-condition subjects, but not for inhibit-condition subjects. Analyses also showed that spontaneous-condition subjects exhibited increased smiling at dub points, a finding that is consistent with the notion that subjects mimicked the inserted facial displays. Self-report findings revealed that spontaneous-condition subjects reported significantly greater amusement to the dubbed compared with the undubbed routines, whereas inhibit-condition subjects' self-reports of amusement did not differentiate dub conditions. Furthermore, spontaneous-condition subjects reported significantly more amusement to the dubbed routines than did inhibit-condition subjects. Despite strong facial control effects on facial EMG activity, no main effect of facial condition on self-reported amusement was found, and therefore, the data provide no support for a general version of facial feedback theory. The data are consistent with the view that mimetic responses enhanced subjective reactions, and they are compatible with the Leventhal and Tomkins versions of facial feedback theory.The research was supported by NSF Grant No. BNS-8507600 and the Lincoln Filene Endowment to Dartmouth College. The authors wish to acknowledge helpful comments provided by Ursula Hess, Timothy L. Hubbard, Arvid Kappas, and two anonymous reviewers.     

Physical therapists' nonverbal communication predicts geriatric patients' health outcomes

Two studies explored the link between health care providers' patterns of nonverbal communication and therapeutic efficacy. In Study 1, physical therapists were videotaped during a session with a client. Brief samples of therapists' nonverbal behavior were rated by naive judges. Judges' ratings were then correlated with clients' physical, cognitive, and psychological functioning at admission, at discharge, and at 3 months following discharge. Therapists' distancing behavior was strongly correlated with short- and long-term decreases in their clients' physical and cognitive functioning. Distancing was expressed through a pattern of not smiling and looking away from the client. In contrast, facial expressiveness, as revealed through smiling, nodding, and frowning, was associated with short- and long-term improvements in functioning. In Study 2, elderly subjects perceived distancing behaviors of therapists more negatively than positive behaviors.     

All smiles are positive, but some smiles are more positive than others

Disagreement as to whether all smiling or specific types of smiling index positive emotion early in life was addressed by examining when infants produced different types of smiling and other facial expressions. Thirteen infants were observed weekly from 1 to 6 months of age. Smiling alone--without cheek raising or mouth opening--was relatively more likely than periods without smiling both when mothers were smiling and when infants were gazing at their mothers' faces. Cheek-raise (Duchenne) smiling was relatively more likely than smiling alone only when mothers were smiling. Open-mouth (play) smiling was relatively more likely than smiling alone only when infants were gazing directly at mothers' faces. Smiling involving both cheek raising and mouth opening was relatively likely both when mothers were smiling and when infants were gazing at mothers' faces and became increasingly likely with age when both conditions co-occurred. The cheek-raise and open-mouth dimensions of smiling appear to be associated with, respectively, the amplification of processes of sharing positive affect and of visual engagement that are present to a lesser degree in smiling alone.     

Coping sense of humor reduces effects of stereotype threat on women's math performance

Two studies demonstrated that coping sense of humor buffered women against the effects of stereotype threat on math performance. Using a correlational design, Study 1 demonstrated that women low in coping sense of humor assessed their performance on standardized math tests lower than did men and lower than did women high in coping sense of humor. Using an experimental design, Study 2 showed that coping sense of humor was positively related to women's performance on a math test taken under conditions of stereotype threat but not under conditions of no stereotype threat. Mediation analyses suggest that in the stereotype-threat condition, state anxiety mediated the relationship between coping sense of humor and test performance. Women higher in coping sense of humor performed better because they felt less anxiety while taking the test.     

Face the noise: embodied responses to nonverbal vocalizations of discrete emotions

Extensive prior research has shown that the perception of an emotional facial expression automatically elicits a corresponding facial expression in the observer. Theories of embodied emotion, however, suggest that such reactions might also occur across expressive channels, because simulation is based on integrated motoric and affective representations of that emotion. In the present studies, we examined this idea by focusing on facial and experiential reactions to nonverbal emotion vocalizations. In Studies 1 and 2, we showed that both hearing and reproducing vocalizations of anger, disgust, happiness, and sadness resulted in specific facial behaviors, as well as congruent self-reported emotions (Study 2). In Studies 3 and 4, we showed that the inhibition of congruent facial actions impaired listeners' processing of emotion vocalizations (Study 3), as well as their experiences of a concordant subjective state (Study 4). Results support the idea that cross-channel simulations of others' states serve facilitative functions similar to more strict imitations of observed expressive behavior, suggesting flexibility in the motoric and affective systems involved in emotion processing and interpersonal emotion transfer. We discuss implications for embodiment research and the social consequences of expressing and matching emotions across nonverbal channels.     

Perception and Expressing Habits of Smiling and Angry Expressions Modulated by Facial Physical Attractiveness in Asian Female Persons

In this study, we investigated the effects of facial physical attractiveness on perception and expressing habit of smiling and angry expressions. In experiment 1, 20 participants rated 60 photo subjects’ smiling and angry expressions of uncontrolled physical expression configuration. The results showed that for the angry faces, the perceived expression intensity and the expression naturalness in the attractive group were significantly stronger than those in the unattractive group; for the smiling faces, this attractiveness bias was not observed. In experiment 2, using artificial expressions made by an identical expression template, interestingly, the perceived expression intensity and the expression naturalness of the smiling faces in the attractive group were stronger than those in the unattractive group, while the impression strength of anger between the two groups was approximately the same. A comparison of the two observations suggests that facial physical attractiveness can enhance the perceived intensity of a smiling expression but not an angry expression, and that the inconsistencies between the two experiments are due to the difference of expressing habits between unattractive and attractive persons. These results have implications as regards the effect of facial attractiveness on the expressing habits of expression senders and the person’s development of social skills.     

Facial reactions to emotional stimuli: Automatically controlled emotional responses

Based on a model in which the facial muscles can be both automatically/involuntarily controlled and voluntarily controlled by conscious processes, we explore whether spontaneously evoked facial reactions can be evaluated in terms of criteria for what characterises an automatic process. In three experiments subjects were instructed to not react with their facial muscles, or to react as quickly as possible by wrinkling the eyebrows (frowning) or elevating the cheeks (smiling) when exposed to pictures of negative or positive emotional stimuli, while EMG activity was measured from the corrugator supercilii and zygomatic major muscle regions. Consistent with the proposition that facial reactions are automatically controlled, the results showed that the corrugator muscle reaction was facilitated to negative stimuli and the zygomatic muscle reaction was facilitated to positive stimuli. The results further showed that, despite the fact that subjects were required to not react with their facial muscles at all, they could not avoid producing a facial reaction that corresponded to the negative and positive stimuli.     

Relations between emotions,display rules,social motives,and facial behaviour

We report research on the relations between emotions, display rules, social motives, and facial behaviour. In Study 1 we used a questionnaire methodology to examine how respondents would react to a funny or a not funny joke told to them by a close friend or a stranger. We assessed display rules and motivations for smiling and/or laughing. Display rules and social motives (partly) mediated the relationship between the experimental manipulations and self‐reported facial behaviour. Study 2 was a laboratory experiment in which funny or not funny jokes were told to participants by a male or female stranger. Consistent with hypotheses, hearing a funny joke evoked a stronger motivation to share positive affect by showing longer Duchenne smiling. Contrary to hypotheses, a not funny joke did not elicit greater prosocial motivation by showing longer “polite” smiling, although such a smiling pattern did occur. Rated funniness of the joke and the motivation to share positive affect mediated the relationship between the joke manipulation and facial behaviour. Path analysis was used to explore this mediating process in greater detail.     

Blind spots in the search for happiness: Implicit attitudes and nonverbal leakage predict affective forecasting errors

We investigated implicit knowledge and affective forecasting, reasoning that although conscious evaluations are available to people when predicting their future emotional responses, nonconscious evaluations are not. However, these automatically-activated evaluations should contribute to in-the-moment emotional experiences, and thus they should account for misforecasts (i.e., discrepancies between affective forecasts and actual experiences). We conducted two studies to explore affective misforecasts, using food items as stimuli. In Study 1, participants' implicit attitudes (but not their explicit attitudes) predicted misforecasts of food enjoyment, supporting the role of nonconscious evaluations in affective forecasting errors. In Study 2, we examined participants' facial expressions (another index of nonconscious evaluation) upon the presentation of food items, and we found that these nonverbal behaviors predicted affective misforecasts as well. In sum, although nonconscious evaluations are unavailable when anticipating the future, they may contribute to one's in-the-moment experiences and thus serve as blind spots in affective forecasting.     

Sex differences in smiling as measured in a picture taking task

Previous research suggests females smile more than males in a picture taking task (Mills, 1984; Morse, 1982; Ragan, 1982). Experiment 1 sought to replicate this effect and, in addition, investigate if the gender of the photographer or instructions to smile would influence smiling in females and males. Subjects were told that their picture would be used in a subsequent facial perception study. Results showed that subjects instructed to smile smiled more than subjects given no instructions. There were no main effects for subject's or photographer's gender and no interactions. In Experiment 2, graduating students from the University of New Brunswick, Saint John, completed a questionnaire which assessed how much subjects wanted to smile for their yearbook picture, whether subjects selected a picture of themselves smiling for their yearbook, and how much the photographer encouraged them to smile. Experiment 2 showed that females wished to smile significantly more than males, and females selected a picture of themselves smiling significantly more than males. Males and females did not differ in the reported degree to which the photographer encouraged them to smile. Results from Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that sex differences in smiling as measured in a picture taking task depend critically on the situation in which the picture is taken.     

Smiling in photographs: childhood similarities between sexes become differences constant in adulthood

Contemporary published photographs of 1639 children, 200 older teenagers, and 304 adults in North America were analyzed for the smiling pattern (full, partial, or none) exhibited by individuals by sex. For each of the three age groups and for both sexes, most individuals posed with a full smile. No statistically significant differences in smiling pattern were present between the sexes for photographs of children at preschool and grade-school age. By teenage years, and even more for the adults, there were statistically significant differences between the sexes with regard to a smiling facial expression. In those cases, more female than male subjects smiled fully, whereas more male than female subjects did not smile. Examination of photographs of well-known persons longitudinally through adulthood showed that individuals tended to be consistent in smiling pattern. There was no significant sex difference for this relative constancy of facial expression in posed photographs.