Facilitating the Furrowed Brow: An Unobtrusive Test of the Facial Feedback Hypothesis Applied to Unpleasant Affect

Abstract

We examined the hypothesis that muscle contractions in the face influence subjective emotional experience. Previously, researchers have been critical of experiments designed to test this facial feedback hypothesis, particularly in terms of methodological problems that may lead to demand characteristics. In an effort to surmount these methodological problems Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988) developed an experimental procedure whereby subjects were induced to contract facial muscles involved in the production of an emotional pattern, without being asked to actually simulate an emotion. Specifically, subjects were required to hold a pen in their teeth, which unobtrusively creates a contraction of the zygomaticus major muscles, the muscles involved in the production of a human smile. This manipulation minimises the likelihood that subjects are able to interpret their zygomaticus contractions as representing a particular emotion, thereby preventing subjects from determining the purpose of the experiment. Strack et al. (1988) found support for the facial feedback hypothesis applied to pleasant affect, in that subjects in the pen-in-teeth condition rated humorous cartoons as being funnier than subjects in the control condition (in which zygomaticus contractions were inhibited). The present study represents an extension of this nonobtrusive methodology to an investigation of the facial feedback of unpleasant affect. Consistent with the Strack et al. procedure, we wanted to have subjects furrow their brow without actually instructing them to do so and without asking them to produce any emotional facial pattern at all. This was achieved by attaching two golf tees to the subject's brow region (just above the inside comer of each eye) and then instructing them to touch the tips of the golf tees together as part of a “divided-attention” experiment. Touching the tips of the golf tees together could only be achieved by a contraction of the corrugator supercilii muscles, the muscles involved in the production of a sad emotional facial pattern. Subjects reported significantly more sadness in response to aversive photographs while touching the tips of the golf tees together than under conditions which inhibited corrugator contractions. These results provide evidence, using a new and unobtrusive manipulation, that facial feedback operates for unpleasant affect to a degree similar to that previously found for pleasant affect.