Biological substrates of empathy and facial modulation of emotion: Two facets of the scientific legacy of John Lanzetta

The impact of John Lanzetta's emotion research on our understanding of the interplay between psychological and physiological processes in emotion is examined. Lanzetta's work in two areas is reviewed along with related work by others. The first area concerns the biological substrates of empathy. Here Lanzetta studied emotional contagion, and in particular the conditions under which viewing another person's emotions can cause expressive and physiological changes in the observer. The second area concerns the facial modulation of emotion. Here Lanzetta studied the capacity of voluntary facial expression to alter the physiological and subjective aspects of emotion. The article closes with a personal reflection on Lanzetta as a scientist and as a person.The author's research reviewed in this article was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant AG07476 and National Institute of Mental Health Grants MH39895 and MH50841 to Robert W. Levenson.