The Role of Facial Response in the Experience of Emotion...The Role of Facial Response in the Experience of Emotion Roger Tourangeau and Phoebe C. Ellsworth Yale University Facial

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1979, Vol. 37, No. 9, 1519-1531

The Role of Facial Response in the Experience of Emotion

Roger Tourangeau and Phoebe C. EllsworthYale University

Facial expression and emotional stimuli were varied orthogonally in a 3 X 4factorial design in order to test whether facial expression is necessary or suffi-cient to influence emotional experience. Subjects watched a film eliciting fear,sadness, or no emotion, while holding their facial muscles in the position char-acteristic of fear or sadness, or in an effortful but nonemotional grimace; thosein a fourth group received no facial instructions. The subjects believed that thestudy concerned subliminal perception and that the facial positions were neces-sary to prevent physiological recording artifacts. The films had powerful effectson reported emotions, the facial expressions none. Correlations between facialexpression and reported emotion were zero. Sad and fearful subjects showeddistinctive patterns of physiological arousal. Facial expression also tended toaffect physiological responses in a manner consistent with an effort hypothesis.

Half a century ago, Cannon's decisive cri-tique of the James-Lange theory ended scien-tific consideration of the hypothesis thatperipheral responses provide the basis forqualitative distinctions among emotions. Non-specific arousal theories have dominated thestudy of emotion ever since (Duffy, 1934,1962; Lindsley, 1951). The James-Langetheory (James, 1890; Lange, 1885/1922)proposed that emotional stimuli elicit physio-logical responses specific to each emotion; theexperience of an emotion, according to theirview, is the perception of the correspondingphysiological pattern.1 By contrast, the non-specific arousal theorists argue that physio-logical patterns do not correspond to specific

The research reported here was funded by Na-tional Science Foundation Grant BNS-7S-22890awarded to the second author. We are grateful forthe assistance of Sidney Don and Steven Ganahl, whoserved as experimenters; Michael Brownstein, Bar-bara Fleming, Kathy Gould, and Jane Schweitzer,who assisted with scoring the data; Paul Ekman,Wallace V. Friescn, Alison Webb, Adclle Wenning,Nancy Wilncr, and the Yale Audio-Visual Center,who helped us find, pretest, and edit the films; andRobert Novelly, who advised us on appropriatephysiological measures.

Requests for reprints should be sent to RogerTourangeau, Department of Psychology, ConnecticutCollege, New London, Connecticut 06.320.

emotions but only to the intensity of generalemotional arousal and perhaps (Duffy, 1962)to a global, primitive approach-avoidancetendency. These theories have little to sayabout qualitative distinctions among the emo-tions. They tend to share, implicitly or ex-plicitly, the assumption that such distinctionsare the product of learning. The theory ofSchachter and Singer (1962), for example,asserts that undifferentiated arousal is classi-fied according to situational cues to determinethe emotional experience. Qualitative distinc-tions derive from the classification; the classi-fication presumably derives from social learn-ing (see also Duffy, 1962).

The learning position of the arousal theo-rists is cast into some doubt by recent evi-dence for the widespread cross-cultural gen-

1 The theories proposed by James and by Langcdiffer in that Lange's theory was restricted to auto-nomic feedback (heart rate, stomach contractions,blushes, etc.), whereas that of James also includedmuscular feedback (such as changes in tonus, postureand, presumably, facial expression). Most subsequentwriters, including the major critics, attributed thevisceral version to both authors indiscriminately; inusing the term "James-Lange theory" we will followin this tradition, while recognizing that the muscularcomponents of the James theory were not fully dis-credited by Cannon's research, and have much incommon with the later facial feedback hypotheses.

Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/79/3709-151M00.75

1519

1520 ROGER TOURANGEAU AND PHOEBE C. ELLSWORTH

erality of a small set of basic emotioncategories, reliably used in labeling facial ex-pressions of emotion (Ekman, Sorenson, &Friesen, 1969; Ekman & Friesen, 1971; Izarcl,1971). If emotion categories are learned, cul-tural phenomena, why should all culturesstudied so far share the same small set? Inline with the evidence on the cross-culturalgenerality of the recognition of facial expres-sions, some theorists (Tomkins, 1962; Izard,1971, 1977) have proposed that feedbackfrom the facial muscles is important in thesubjective experience of emotion. In thestrongest version of these facial feedbacktheories, facial responses play the same crit-ical role as more general visceral and muscularchanges play in the James-Lange theory: theproprioception of the facial response is theexperience of emotion. This shift in emphasisfrom visceral to facial feedback neutralizesmost of Cannon's criticisms of the James-Lange theory. Cannon (1927) , for example,argued that visceral responses were too slowand too undifferentiated to be the basis ofthe subjective experience; facial expressionsare sufficiently immediate and sufficientlyvarious; similarly, Cannon's demonstrationsof "emotional" behavior in animals whoseviscera were separated from their centralnervous systems are irrelevant to the facialtheories.

Although they differ on the causal priorityassigned to each, these various positions pre-dict that in general self-report, facial, andphysiological measures of emotion should bepositively correlated. In contrast, still anotherposition predicts a negative correlation amongthese measures. This cathartic-hydraulic viewwas proposed first by James (1890); its chiefexponent, however, is Freud (1946/1921).According to the hydraulic view, verbal, fa-cial, and physiological responses are alterna-tive channels for releasing the emotional en-ergy evoked by a stimulus; if one channel isblocked, the response through the othersshould increase in intensity.

What is the evidence for the various views?The general arousal models receive a certainamount of indirect support from the numerousfailures to find clear patterns correspondingto different emotions (Lacey, Kagan, Lacey,

& Moss, 1963; Lindsley, 1951). In addition,Hohmann (1966) has found, contrary to Can-non's (1927) contention, that separation ofthe viscera from the central nervous system(due to spinal lesions) in humans is associatedwith reduced emotional responding. Finally,there is Schachter and Singer's (1962) dem-onstration that induced autonomic arousal canlead to various types of emotional (and un-emotional) response (see also Schachter &Wheeler, 1962; Zillman & Bryant, 1974).2

On the other hand, some of the better studiesof emotional arousal have found evidence thatdifferent emotions are associated with differentautonomic patterns (Ax, 1953; Funkenstein,1955; Wolf & Wolff, 1947). Hohmann's find-ings on patients with spinal lesions invitenumerous interpretations. Schachter andSinger's results do not always replicate (secMarshall & Zimbardo, 1979; Maslach, 1979),and even in their original experiment thedifferences between subjects given situa-tional cues for euphoria and those given cuesfor anger were negligible. Finally, Cannon'sarguments on the long latencies of visceralresponses still pose difficulties for any theorythat makes the sensation of autonomic arousala necessary condition for emotional experi-ence.

The strongest evidence for the facial feed-back view comes from studies by Laird(1974) and Lanzetta, Cartwright-Smith, andKleck (1976). Laird showed effects for manip-ulated facial expression on felt aggressive-ness, and Lanzetta et al. showed similar ef-fects on pain. The facial feedback theorists,however, cannot explain the results ofSchachter and Singer's experiment (but seecomments by Izard, 1977, chapter 2). Inaddition, the Laird study did not contain thecontrol group necessary to determine whetherthe appropriate expression increases the re-sponse to a stimulus or the inappropriate ex-pression inhibits the response (or both). Lairdalso used self-report measures in a within-

2 Since the physiological measures in Schachterand Singer were extremely crude, we cannot be en-tirely confident that the physiological patterns wereidentical. It is quite possible that the situational cuesmodified the physiological response.

FACIAL RESPONSE AND EMOTION 1521

subjects design, leaving open the possibilitythat demand characteristics were responsiblefor the results. Lanzetta et al. (1976) alsoused a within-subjects design, but their inclu-sion of a galvanic skin response (GSR) mea-sure makes an account in terms of demandcharacteristics less plausible. However, sincepain is not typically included in theories ofemotion, their findings may not generalize tothe feeling states that are.

The best evidence for the hydraulic viewcomes from studies showing a negative corre-lation between facial expressiveness and mea-sures of physiological arousal (Buck, Miller,& Caul, 1974; Buck, Savin, Miller, & Caul,1972; Lanzetta & Kleck, 1970). This evidencetends to disconfirm the other theories. How-ever, few of the studies cited in support forthis view actually show the negative correla-tion expected to hold within a given individ-ual. Instead, they find evidence that the mostexpressive people are not the most physiolog-ically aroused; they do not find that the sameindividual is more expressive when he is lessaroused. In addition, several studies (includ-ing Lanzetta et al., 1976) have found signif-icant positive correlations.

Thus none of the evidence is decisive, andmost of the questions about the roles and rela-tive importance of the various components ofemotional responding remain open. This studyattempts to answer some of these questions bytesting several predictions from the facialfeedback hypothesis. What we are calling the"facial feedback hypothesis" obviously de-rives from the theories of Tomkins (1962),who was the first to claim that the emotionsare primarily facial behaviors, and later Izard,who maintains that "awareness of facial activ-ity or facial feedback is actually our awarenessof the subjective experience of a specific emo-tion" (1977, p. 60). Nonetheless the generalhypothesis we are testing here is not the sameas that of either of these theorists. In the firstplace, both theories are comprehensive state-ments containing numerous propositionsabout the relationship of emotions to person-ality, motivation, communication, and eachother. The facial feedback hypothesis involvesjust one of these propositions, albeit a centralone.

In the second place, neither author is en-tirely static in defining the implications of hisgeneral statements about the importance ofthe face. Our experiment was designed to test(a) whether the appropriate facial expressionis necessary for the subjective experience ofthe emotion, and (b) whether the voluntaryassumption of an expression is sufficient toproduce the experience. If facial expression isnecessary for emotional experience, thereshould be no emotion unless the face responds.Even in the presence of emotional stimuli,without the appropriate emotional expression,no emotion should be felt. If the facial ex-pression is sufficient for emotional experience,when the face responds, the emotion shouldfollow. Even in the absence of emotional stim-uli, an emotional facial expression should pro-duce an emotional feeling. Weaker forms ofthe hypotheses predict that feedback from theface should have a significant main effect onthe emotional experience, attenuating or in-tensifying it. These hypotheses are derivedfrom some of the more strongly worded state-ments of Tomkins (1962) and Izard (1977) ,statements that are qualified in other parts oftheir work. Both theorists argue that adultsmay have learned to duplicate the effects ofproprioceptive feedback by means of a re-afferent loop from the subcortical centers di-rectly to the cortex, rather than from the sub-cortical centers to the face to the cortex, sothat actual movement of the face is not al-ways necessary. Similarly, they have arguedthat voluntary movement of the facial mus-cles may not be sufficient to produce the cor-responding emotion, because it does not createexactly the same proprioceptive cues as theinvoluntary movement created by a "real"emotional stimulus.

Although the theories allow for the pos-sibility that neither the necessity nor thesufficiency hypothesis is true, we believe thatthese hypotheses are worth testing. In the firstplace, the practical, therapeutic implicationsof the theory are much greater if the facialmuscles are actually involved in the experi-ence. If the face were necessary for emotionalexperience, victims of accidents, disease, orsurgery resulting in facial paralysis or sensoryimpairment would be expected to show corre-


spending affective deficiencies, and additionaltherapeutic attention would be indicated. Ifthe face were sufficient to influence the feltemotion, it would be useful to teach patientssuffering from affective disorders how to con-trol their facial expressions. Tn the secondplace, the qualifications render the theorymuch less testable. If the only influentialfacial expression is one that results from aninvoluntary natural response and if the facialmuscles can be bypassed intracranially, thecausal role of the face becomes inaccessible toany sort of definitive empirical test.

A final hypothesis tested by our research isone that does follow directly even from theweaker statements of Tomkins (1962) andIzard ( 1 9 7 7 ) , as well as from the strongerfacial feedback hypothesis. It is simply theprediction that, in general, the relationshipbetween the facial expression and the emo-tional experience should be monotonic andpositive.

The three hypotheses of necessity, suf-ficiency, and monotonicity were tested in thisstudy by a design in which facial expressionwas manipulated independently of emotionalstimulation. The basic design included a rep-lication across two emotions—fear and sad-ness; we observed facial, physiological, andself-report responses. We chose fear and sad-ness because we felt that it was important todemonstrate a distinction between negativeemotions. The comparison of a single positivewith a single negative emotion does not pro-vide a very stringent test of the qualitativedistinctions among emotions, and is particu-larly prone to demand characteristics andlevel-of-arousal artifacts.3 Because it in-cluded measures of all three sets of responses,the study can also address additional ques-tions about their interrelationships and thuscan provide a basis for comparing all thetheoretical positions.

Method

Overview

respiration rate were recorded, and the placement ofadditional fake electrodes on their faces provided arationale for asking them to hold their facial musclesin a constant position during the film. These positionscorresponded to a fear fu l expression, a sad expression,or a grimace unrelated to any emotion. A final groupof subjects watched one of the three films but re-ceived no facial instructions. During the film thesubjects' faces were videotaped, and as soon as it wasover the subjects rated their emotional experience.The design was thus a 3 X 4 factorial with threefilms ( f ea r , sad, and neutral) and four facial expres-sions ( fea r , sad, neutral, no instructions).

Subjects

The subjects were 128 undergraduates, 85 of whomreceived both credit (in partial fulfillment of intro-ductory course requirements) and $2.00. The remain-ing 43 subjects received $3.00. Five subjects were notincluded in the analyses: 2 left the experiment whenthe content of the film was described to them, 1slopped the film in the middle, and 2 others werelost because of equipment problems.

Procedure

There were two experimenters in the study. Thefirst was blind to the subject's facial instruction con-dition. This experimenter (Ei) told the subject thebasic cover story: the experiment concerned physio-logical indices of subliminal perception—heart rate,skin conductance, respiration rate, "the orienting re-flex," and "subvocal speech"; all of these responseswould be recorded on a polygraph, and the two thatinvolved small movements of the eyes and lips wouldalso be recorded on videotape. The subliminal stimuliwould be single frames spliced into a film. Ei thenexplained that certain parts of the procedure mightcause some discomfort: (a) to prevent the subjectfrom concentrating too hard on finding the sub-liminal images, the film was intended to be distract-ing, and might be upsetting; (b) since normal musclemovements could distort some of the physiologicalmeasures, the subject might be required to hold cer-tain muscles in a somewhat uncomfortable positionduring the film; (c) since observers would later scorethe videotapes for the orienting reflex and subvocalspeech response, absolutely complete anonymity couldnot be guaranteed. After explaining how the subjectwould be "hooked up" to the polygraph, E, describedthe content of the film and obtained the subject'sformal consent.

Believing that the experiment was a study ofphysiological responses to subliminal stimuli, subjectswatched a sad, fear-arousing, or emotionally neutralfilm. Their heart rate, galvanic skin response, and

3 We considered a comparison between fear andanger, in an attempt to include a replication of Ax(1955). We had to abandon this plan for the inter-esting reason that we could find no film that con-sistently elicited anger more than other emotions inall subjects.


Ei then left and sent the second experimenter (Ea)into the room. £2 had been out of earshot and so wasunaware of the subject's film condition,

Es placed the electrodes on the subject (electro-cardiograph FEKG] electrodes on the wrists, a res-piration thermistor' on the nostril, GSR electrodeson the middle finger, bogus electromyograph FEMG]electrodes on the face), explaining how they workedand reinforcing the rationale of the cover story. Afterthe electrodes had been placed, E2 told the subject tokeep his or her arms still, and gave the instructionsfor holding the face in the position that would facil-itate recording the facial responses. When E2 wassatisfied with the subject's facial pose, he left thesubject alone for a baseline period with instructionsto relax.

The baseline period lasted until the subject's phys-iological responses had appeared stable for at least 1minute. Then E« began videotaping the subject's faceand repeated the facial instructions (in a shorterf o r m ) . When the facial expression was approximatelyright, Ea told the subject to hold the position duringthe film; he then turned the projector on and im-mediately left the room. As soon as the film was over(E, watched through a one-way mirror for the endof the film), E3 returned and administered a ques-tionnaire containing the self-report emotion items,along with filler items consistent with the cover story.

Ei debriefed the subjects. Although several sub-jects expressed confusion about the complex coverstory, no one guessed that facial expression was thevariable of interest, nor that his or her expression hadbeen an emotional one.

Two male undergraduates took the Ei role; onemale graduate student took the E- role.

Independent Variables

Film. We pretested eight films on a group of SOundergraduates, and selected three because theyelicited high agreement across subjects on a singledominant emotion, with low ratings for all otheremotions. Subjects rated each of five emotions ontwo 9-poinl scales (0-8) for each film. The ratingsare the sums of the two scale scores. The fear filmreliably elicited fear (M = 5.5) ; lesser degrees ofpain, disgust, and interest; and relatively low sadness(M = 2.4). It concerns two accidents in an industrialshop. The sad film traces the reactions of a small boyto his brief stay in an orphanage while his mother isin the hospital. The sad film reliably elicited sadness(M = 3.6) and interest (J/ = 3.4) from pretest sub-jects, and low fear (If = 0.75). The neutral film de-picts a flower show in the botanical gardens ofGolden Gate Park. It was seen as slightly pleasant(If = 2.8) and interesting (Af = 2.1) and not at allsad (Af = 0.20) or frightening (At = 0.02). Each filmlasted for 2 minutes.

Facial instructions. The facial instructions werederived from the work of Tomkins (1962), Izard(1971), Ekman and Friesen (1975), and the instruc-tions used by the second author in developing proto-

type photographs for the Facial Affect Scoring Tech-nique (Ekman, Friesen, & Tomkins, 1971). In prac-tice, the instructions varied somewhat depending onhow easily the subject adopted the desired position.For the subjects in the fear face, condition, the in-structions typically ran:

There are three sets of muscles around the eyesthat can distort the measurement of the orientingreflex. We want you to contract all three of them.The first is the muscle between the eyebrows, thecorrugator. Contract that muscle by pulling the twoeyebrows together, toward each other in the mid-dle. The second is the muscle in the forehead, thefrontalis. Contract the frontalis by raising youreyebrows. The last muscle is the one which controlsthe eyelids. Contract that one by opening youreyes up wide. There is only one set of musclesyou'll have to contract in your mouth. First, partyour lips slightly; it will be easier. The muscleshere (points below corners of mouth I are the tri-angularis muscles. Contract them by pulling thecorners of your mouth down and back. If you'redoing it right, you should feel your neck get tense.

For the sad face subjects, the instructions were sim-ilar, although the muscles differed: the corrugator wascontracted (brows drawn together), frontalis con-tracted (inner corner of the brows raised), eyelidsrelaxed, mentalis contracted (lower lip pushed up andout slightly), and quaclratus muscles contracted (cor-ners of lips pulled down). The nonemotional facesubjects were instructed to close one eye, purse theirlips, and puff out their cheeks. V'nmanipulated facesubjects were told to ignore the facial electrodes andto act "naturally," as we were "interested in deter-mining whether the orienting reflex and subvocalspeech responses can be detected against a backgroundof normal facial movements." For all subjects, elec-trodes were placed on the chin and below one eye(for subjects in the nonemotional face condition, thisbogus electrode was placed below the eye they weresupposed to close).

Dependent Variables

Self-reported emotion. Fear was measured on two9-point scales labeled "scared" and "afraid"; thescales ranged from "not at all" (0) to "very strongly"(8). These two scales were highly related (r — .&l).Sadness was also measured on two 9-point scales;these were labeled "sad" and "unhappy" (r = .71).As in the pretests, the overall emotion score is thesum of the two scales.

Facial expressions. Two trained raters blind to thesubject's conditions scored videotapes on the emo-

4 Respiration rate was recorded as a control forcertain heart rate artifacts. These corrections provedunnecessary. The results for respiration rate were notanalyzed.


tional content of the subject's facial expressions. Foreach subject, the raters judged how sad, unhappy,scared, and afraid the subject looked. (The scalesfor these judgments were identical to those used bythe subjects in judging their own emotions; theywere, thus, 9-poinl scales ranging from "not at all"to "very strongly.") The facial sadness measure is thesum of the two raters' judgments for "sad" and"unhappy"; similarly, the facial fear rating is thesum of the two ratings of "scared" and "afraid."

Physiological indices. Physiological responses weremonitored by a Narco-Bio Desk Model Physiograph.EKG electrodes were attached to the subjects' wristswith a ground electrode on the ankle. A cardiotach-ometer averaged the beat-to-beat interval over fivebeats and recorded the heart rate in beats per min-ute. The skin resistance was monitored by passing asmall direct current through two plate electrodes at-tached to the top and bottom of the subject's middlefinger.

Artificiality. Our efforts to keep the experimentersblind to the subject's condition, to prevent the sub-jects from guessing the hypotheses, and to collectthree different kinds of data, although successful,resulted in a situation that was complicated andunusual and may recall the futile efforts of early re-searchers to obtain photographs of "true emotions"in the laboratory (e.g., Landis, 1924). Although emo-tional experience may have been attenuated in oursetting, there is no evidence that this was the case.First, the self-reported emotional reactions to thefilms were at least as high as those obtained in pre-testing; second, several subjects spontaneously com-mented on their emotional arousal, and one stoppedthe projector because the film was too upsetting;third, there were no false alarms in the reporting ofsubliminal stimuli, as might be expected if the taskdemands distracted subjects from the arousing prop-erties of the films; and finally, unlike the early re-search, our emotional stimuli produced significantdifferences on the dependent variables.

Results •'

Facial Expression

The judgments of facial expression appearto be reliable across raters: for the two-itemsadness index, the two raters' judgments cor-related .76 (p < .001); for the fear index,the two raters correlated at .81. For the re-maining analyses, ratings were summed overthe two judges.

The facial instructions had the expectedlarge effect on the ratings of facial expression.On the average, subjects given the sad facialinstructions were rated as more than 15 points

sadder (on a 32-point scale) than the subjectsgiven any of the other three facial instruc-tions, F(3, 3) = 153.1, p < .01. Subjectsgiven the fear face instructions averaged 13points higher on rated facial fear, F(3, 3) =327.1, p < .01. The facial instructions thusseemed to have succeeded.

There is also some indication that the filmaffected ratings of facial expression. Subjectswatching the fear film looked more fearful(M = 8.2) than those watching the sad (4.4)or neutral (5.4) films, F(2, 2) =116.7, p <.01. There was no corresponding effect forrated facial sadness. This effect provides someevidence for the validity of the judges' rat-ings (since the film might have been expectedto affect facial expression in the obtained di-rection) and of the success of the films increating real emotions but also indicates thatthe facial instructions manipulation was notwholly successful. Apparently subjects couldnot consistently maintain their instructed ex-pression when confronted with the strongstimuli of the film. Though reliable, the effectof the film is small, particularly when com-pared with the effect for facial instructions.

There were no interactions nor main effectsfor experimenter on rated facial expression.

s The cell sizes in this study are unequal. While thedifferences are small, they may in part reflect theexperimental variables of interest; the film, for ex-ample, may have affected subject attrition slightly(two fear film subjects, one sad film subject, and noneutral film subjects refused to participate afterlearning about the film they would see). Under thesecircumstances, weighted means analysis seemed mostadvisable (Winer, 1962, p. 2 2 2 ) . Partly because theinequalities are so small, unweighted analyses yieldidentical conclusions.

The film and face variables were treated as fixedfactors and experimenter as a random factor. Thusmain effects for the film and facial instructions weretested against their interaction with the experimenterfactor. Error terms based on pooling these inter-action terms with the within-group sum of squares(Winer, 1962, pp. 202-207) do not alter the conclu-sions except where reported. The pooling procedureis used whenever permissible for planned and a pos-teriori comparisons, because of the handicap of 1 and1 degrees of freedom. Small variations in the degreesof freedom in these analyses reflect missing data andthe specific terms that could be included in the poolederror term.


Self-Reported Emotion

As Tables 1 and 2 show, the film had sub-stantial effects on the subjects' ratings of theirown emotions: for fear, F(2, 2) = 29.5, p <.05; for sadness, F(2, 2) = 42.1, p < .05.A priori contrasts indicated that subjects whowatched the fear film were more frightenedthan subjects who watched the other films,F(l, 106) = 17.9, p < .01; subjects who sawthe sad film were sadder, F(l, 103) = 77.1,p < .01. Each contrast accounts for more than90% of the variance among the means for thethree film conditions. (See Footnote 5 for anexplanation of the degrees of freedom).

An examination of the difference betweenfear (or sadness) and the mean of all otheremotion ratings confirms this analysis. Com-pared to subjects who watched the sad andneutral films, fear film subjects felt predom-inantly fear. For subjects who watched thefear film, the self-rated fear was 2.65 pointshigher than the average self-rating of all theother emotions; for sad film subjects self-rated fear was 1.06 points lower than theaverage across the other emotions, and forneutral film subjects it was about the same—0.28 points lower, F(2, 2) = 113.8, p < .01.The overall analysis also shows an uninter-pretable Face X E interaction. No other ef-fects are significant. Compared to subjectswho watched the fear and neutral films, sadfilm subjects felt predominantly sadness.Their self-rated sadness was 5.20 points higherthan the average of all the other emotions;for fear film subjects self-rated sadness wasabout the same as the average of all otheremotions (.06 points lower) and for neutral

Table 2Mean Self-Reported Sadness

Table 1Mean Self- >orted Fear

Facial instructions

Noncmo- Unmanip-Film Fear Sad tional ulated M

FearSadNeutral

6.03.33.3

7.S3.22.1

7.83.92.3

4.63.92.2

6,53.62.5

Facial instructions

Noncmo- Unmanip-Filni Fear Sad tional ulated M

FearSadNeutral

4.18.90.9

4.48.82.6

4.79.7J.9

3.58.81.4

4.49.11.6

Note. Scale ranges from 0 to 16, with higher numbersindicating greater fear.

Note. Scale ranges from 0 to 16, with higher numbersindicating greater sadness,

film subjects 1.42 points lower, F(2, 2 ) =20.5, p < .05. No other effects were signif-icant.

Both the necessity hypothesis (that facialresponses are necessary for the felt emotion)and the sufficiency hypothesis (that facial re-sponses are sufficient for felt emotion) of thefacial feedback theory predict effects for facialinstructions. There are, however, no signif-icant main effects for facial expression instruc-tions on either emotion, nor does facial in-struction interact significantly with film.

One possible interpretation of the lack ofeffects for facial instructions is that the sub-jects were simply unable to maintain theirfacial expressions during the film. Part of thefilm effect, then, may reflect covariation of thefacial expression with the film condition. Par-tialing out variation in felt emotion due tofacial expression through analysis of covari-ance, however, fails to alter significantly thevery substantial film effects. The effects of thefilm on self-reported emotion are thus not at-tributable to differences in facial expressionacross film conditions.

A weakened version of the sufficiency hy-pothesis might predict that, in the absence ofstrong situational cues, the facial expressionmay be sufficient to determine felt emotion.The neutral film subjects, by this argument,should show an effect for facial expression.This prediction receives very slight support:among those subjects who watched the neutralfilm, the sad face subjects are, on the average,slightly sadder than subjects in the other threefacial instructions conditions; similarly, ofthe neutral film subjects, the fear face sub-jects report the most fear. Neither of these


Table 3Means on Physiological Indices by Film and Facial Instructions Condition

Condition

FearSadNeutral

Fall in HR

7.47.7

10.8

Rise in HR Fall in GSR No. GSRs

FearSadNoncmotionalUnmanipulatcd

8.48.87.19.9

Film

21.316.414.6

Facial instructions

17.017,519.615.7

71.067.152.2

43.860.263.886.2

14.411.011.7

12.610.215.811.0

Note. HR = heart rate (change computed in beats per minute). GSR = galvanic skin response (change com-puted in thousands of ohms).

trends for the neutral film subjects, however,is statistically significant, either by a prioricomparisons within the context of the analysisof variance or by Kruskal-Wallis one-wayanalyses of variance for ranked data.

Overall, the relationship between facial ex-pression and reported emotion is slight. Thecorrelation between the ratings of facial fearand self-reported fear is .01; between facialand self-reported sadness, it is .02. Thestrongly positive relationship between facialexpression and self-reported emotion predictedby all the facial feedback theories does notseem to obtain.

Physiological Measures

Two coders scored the polygraph recordingsof the physiological variables. Their agree-ment was substantial, correlations betweenthem ranging from .96 to 1.00 (median r =.98). Indices were based on six variables:baseline heartrate, the average of the sub-ject's heart rate 10 and 5 seconds prior to theend of the 'baseline period (each heart ratereading is itself an average based on five beat-to-beat intervals); baseline skin resistance,also an average of readings 10 and S secondsprior to the end of the baseline period; max-imum heart rate during the film period; min-imum heart rate during the film; number ofskin responses (any fall exceeding 1,000 ohmsprior to leveling off was scored as a response);and lowest skin resistance during the film.

Both skin resistance measures are reported inthousands of ohms. The heart rate (HR)measures are in beats per minute. The rel-evant means for the physiological variablesare given in Table 3.

Rise in heart rate. The largest rise in HRfor each subject was calculated as the differ-ence between maximum and baseline HR. Thefilm had a significant effect on this index, F(2,2) = 36.4, p < .05. A posteriori contrasts(Scheffe criterion, Winer, 1962, p. 88) indi-cate that subjects who watched the fear filmshowed the largest rises in heart rate; neutraland sad film subjects showed smaller rises andwere similar on this index, F(l, 105) — 11.00,p < .05; the contrast accounts for 96% of thevariation among the means of the film groups.None of the other main effects or interactionsare statistically significant.

Fall in heart rate. By subtracting thelowest heart rate from the index of baselineheart rate, we can find the largest fall inheart rate. There is a nearly significant effectfor the film on this variable, F ( 2 , 2) = 17.1,.10 > p > .05. An a posteriori contrast issimilarly marginal: neutral film subjects showthe largest drop in heart rate; fear and sadsubjects show similarly smaller drops, F(l,105) = 4.78, .10 > p > .05; the contrast ac-counts for 99% of the variation. There is alsoan effect for the facial instructions variable,F(3, 3) = 37.2, p < .05. Subjects in the non-emotional face condition show the smallestdrop in heart rate, subjects in the unmanipu-


lated face condition the largest. The interac-tion term used to test this effect for facialinstruction is quite small (F < 1); with apooled error term, the effect is no longer sig-nificant: F(3, 105) < 1, ns. None of the othereffects is significant.

Fall in GSR. Subtracting the lowest skinresistance from the baseline index yields ameasure of overall change in skin resistance.Facial instruction condition has an effect onthis variable: Subjects in the unmanipulatedfacial condition showed the largest drop inskin resistance, the fear instructions subjectsthe smallest. As with the facial instructionseffect on fall in heart rate, the statistical sig-nificance of this is probably overestimated bythe use of the Face X E interaction term asthe error term: F(3, 3) - 44.4, p < .01; apooled error yields F(3, 97) = 1.7, ns. Theother effects do not reach statistical signif-icance.

Number oj galvanic skin responses. Eachtime skin resistance fell by 1,000 ohms, it wasscored as a response. The film variable had asignificant effect of the number of GSRs: F(2,2) =57.1, /> < .01. An a posteriori contrastis marginally significant: Subjects watchingthe fear film had more GSRs on the averagethan the sad and neutral film subjects, F(l,98) = 5.63, .10 > p > .05; the contrast ac-counts for 95% of the variation.

Summary of physiological effects. Three ofthe four physiological variables showed signif-icant film effects. For heart rate fall, sad andfear film subjects were similar, both beinglower than neutral film subjects. For rise inheart rate and number of skin responses, thesad film subjects were closer to the neutralfilm subjects. There was no reliable effect forfilm on largest fall in skin resistance, althoughthe pattern was similar to that for heart rate(sad and fear subjects were similar and bothwere different from neutral film subjects).This pattern of different physiological signsfor different emotional stimuli also appears inTable 4. The pattern of correlations betweenphysiological variables and self-reported emo-tion differs for sadness and fear.

Both fall in heart rate and fall in GSRshow some evidence for facial instructionseffects, although the statistical significance of

Table 4Correlations of Physiological Variables withFacial and Self-Report Measures

FacialSelf-report

Item

Fall in HRRise in HRFall in GSRNo. of GSRsMaximum HRMinimum HRLowest GSR

Fear

-.05.16*

-.05-.05

.19*

.16*

.06

Sad

-.10-.05

.03-.18*-.08

.00

.19*

expression

Fear

.02

.04

.08-.02

03.01

-:o7

Sad

-.01-.02-.08-.14

.02-.01-.06

Note. HR = heart rate (change measured in beatsper minute). GSR = galvanic skin response (changemeasured in thousands of ohms).*p < .05.

the effects depends on the choice of the errorterm. For fall in HR, the nonemotional facialinstructions subjects seem the most "aroused"(showing the smallest drop). This is in linewith the hydraulic-cathartic view. It is theunmanipulated subjects, however, rather thanthe fear or sad face subjects, who show theleast "arousal" (largest drop). Similarly, thefear face subjects show the smallest drop inskin resistance, again in line with the hy-draulic-cathartic view; however, this time theunmanipulated rather than the nonemotionalsubjects show most arousal. Table 4 offersfurther evidence of the traditionally weak andsomewhat inconsistent relationship betweenfacial expression and physiological response.

Discussion

The Facial Feedback Hypothesis

On the assumption that the facial instruc-tions had their intended effect, the facial feed-back hypothesis receives three major setbacksfrom the evidence of this study. First, adopt-ing an emotional facial expression does notappear to be sufficient to produce the emotion.Even when there were no competing emotionalstimuli from the film (i.e., for the neutral filmsubjects), manipulated facial expression didnot produce significant differences in emo-tional responding. The trend for these sub-jects, insofar as there was a trend, was in the


direction predicted by the facial feedbackhypothesis. This trend appears to replicateLaird's (1974) results: the differences hefound were of about the same magnitude asthose in our neutral film condition, and it isprobably a safe assumption that his stimuli(still photographs) were less arousing thanour fear and sadness films.

Second, adopting a nonemotional expressiondoes not prevent emotional responding; thus,emotional expression does not seem necessaryfor emotional feelings. Similarly, correctingfor changes in facial expression statistically byanalysis of covariance does not remove theeffect of the film. Although this technique maybe biased in the direction of undercorrection,it is hard to see how any statistical methodbased on the correlation between facial ex-pression and reported emotion could alter thefilm effect—the correlation is zero.

Finally, this lack of correlation constitutesespecially damaging evidence against thetheory. Examination of the scatter plots offacial and self-reported fear and of facial andself-reported sadness does not provide obvioussupport for any monotonic relationship be-tween self-report and facial expression ofemotion, let alone the linear relation mea-sured by the correlation coefficient. Thus, evena threshold version of the facial feedbackhypothesis seems untenable. Lanzetta, Cart-wright-Smith, and Kleck's (1976) finding ofan effect of facial expression on feelings ofpain does not seem to extend to feelings offear or sadness.

Even if the facial manipulation were un-successful, the facial feedback hypothesiswould be difficult to maintain. The absence ofany correlation between rated expression andreported emotion might buttress an argumentbased on failure of the facial manipulation.The convergence of the facial instructionswith raters' judgments could be explainedaway: raters might have recognized the in-tended expression even though subjects' faceswere poor reflections of the canonical fear orsad expression. Granting both of these argu-ments, we still must explain the absence ofinhibiting effects for facial expression; evenif the facial manipulation of fear, for example,were woefully inadequate to produce the

canonical fear expression, it is difficult to be-lieve that it didn't greatly interfere with theemergence of the sad expression, thus reduc-ing felt sadness. Finally, the existence of thefilm effect, its independence of the facial ex-pression, and its magnitude compared withthat of any facial effect present difficultiesfor the facial feedback position. As to theserelative magnitudes, our results are in com-plete agreement with those presented by Laird(1974).

The lack of any correlation between facialexpression and reported emotion is damagingnot only to the rather strong and unqualifiedversion of the facial feedback hypothesistested in this experiment but also to the moreelaborated, qualified theories proposed byTomkins (1962) and by Izard (1971, 1977).Even if there are reafferent loops and evenif the proprioceptive feedback along voluntaryand involuntary pathways is recognizably dif-ferent, the theories ought to predict a gen-erally positive correlation. The unmanipulatedface condition is especially relevant here, sincethere were no instructions to introduce poten-tially confusing voluntary feedback. In theseconditions, all facial expression was sponta-neous, and the correlations between expressionand reported emotion were still infinitesimal(r — —.01 for fear; r ~ .07 for sadness).6

Physiological Results

It is possible that self-reported emotionmay reflect the subject's perception of the ex-pected effect of the film. Such demand char-acteristics are also relevant to Laird's (1974)study and may account for the effects of thestimuli on self-reported emotion in both hisstudy and ours. The effects of the film on thephysiological variables cannot be so easilyaccounted for by demand characteristics.

6 In general the subjects in the unmanipulated facecondition showed little overt facial response. It ispossible that covert facial expressions, unobserved byour raters, did correlate with self-report of emotion(cf. Schwartz, Fair, Salt, Mandel, & Klerman, 1976).Thus it is still possible that covert involuntary muscleactivity has some causal influence, although the dif-ficulties of separating this influence from the effect ofthe eliciting emotional stimuli are enormous.


Table 5Mean Physiological Arousal for Nonemotional and Unmanipulated Face Subjectsin Neutral Film Condition

Item Nonemotional Unmanipulated t (18)

Number of GSRsFall in GSRRise in MRFall in HR

16.468.618.06.8

10.058.513.412.6

1.941.531.S3

-1.74

.07nsns

.10

Note, n — 9 in the nonemotional face condition; n = 11 in the Unmanipulated face condition. GSR = gal-vanic skin response (change measured in thousands of ohms). HR = heart rate (change measured in beatsper minute).

Subjects who watched the fear film showedgenerally greater "arousal" than subjects whowatched the sad or neutral film. The patternof rises and falls for subjects who watchedthe fear film is quite similar to the patternreported by Ax (1953) for fearful subjects.For the heart rate variables, sad film subjectswere intermediate between fear and neutralfilm subjects. However, sad film subjectsshowed even fewer GSRs than subjects whosaw the neutral film, These data support thenotion of different physiological patterns fordifferent emotions. This position receives fur-ther support from correlations between phys-iological variables and self-reported emotion;again, sadness seems related to lower levels ofarousal, fear to higher levels. These findingstend to render the demand-characteristicsaccount relatively less plausible. Fear filmsubjects seem to show the physiological pat-tern for fear. These findings also tend torender suspect the theoretical utility of thenonspecific arousal concept. (Of course, themere existence of physiologically distinct pat-terns does not guarantee that people use them,as the James-Lange theory asserts, as cuesto their emotional state.)

Facial and Physiological Variables

The Freudian hydraulic model suggests thatthere are different channels for emotional ex-pression; as one channel is used more, theothers are used less in releasing emotionalenergy. We might expect, according to thistheory, negative relations between measuresof physiological arousal and facial expression.Manipulated facial expression did have some

effect on physiological responding, althoughthe statistical significance of the findings isdubious. For the two heart rate variables andthe number of GSRs, nonemotional face sub-jects did, in line with the hydraulic model,show more physiological "arousal" than sub-jects who received the other facial instruc-tions. The results for Unmanipulated subjects,whose facial emotion was more than that ofthe nonemotional face subjects but less thanthat of subjects posed with a fearful or sadexpression, create difficulties for the hydraulicview. In general, the Unmanipulated face sub-jects showed the least arousal.7

On the whole, these results are in line withan effort or concentration hypothesis. Thenonemotional facial position, which requiredsubjects to close one eye and puff out theircheeks, was probably the most difficult posi-tion to maintain and required a great deal ofconcentration. The Unmanipulated face, ofcourse, required no special effort at all. Thatconcentration on a task can produce physio-logical changes has been amply demonstrated(e.g., Lacey, 1950; Lacey, Kagan, Lacey, &Moss, 1963). This mechanism can also ac-count for the individual differences reportedby previous investigators (Lanzetta & Kleck,1970; Buck, Savin, Miller, & Caul, 1972;Buck, Miller, & Caul, 1974): "natural" in-

7 The exception is fall in skin resistance. Unmanip-ulated subjects had the highest skin resistance duringthe baseline period. They showed the largest dropduring the film; despite this, their lowest skin resist-ance during the film still averaged higher than thatof subjects in the other groups. Some of their largedrop doubtless reflects regression artifacts.


hibitors concentrate on inhibiting their facialexpressions; this concentration produceschanges in GSR. The effects of facial instruc-tions on physiological arousal are not entirelyin line with the hydraulic model and are per-haps better explained by an effort or concen-tration mechanism.

This hypothesis is, however, both tentativeand post hoc. Although some of the facialeffects are significant, others are not. Com-paring nonemotional and unmanipulated facesubjects across all film conditions a posteriori,the only physiological measure that is signif-icantly higher in the nonemotional facial con-ditions is the number of GSRs, F(l, 98) =9.97, p < .05. It might be argued that thepurest test of the effort hypotheses is in theneutral film condition, where effort is themajor source of physiological arousal. Table5 shows the means for the four physiologicalvariables for the nonemotional and unmanipu-lated face subjects who watched the neutralfilm. Testing all four physiological variablestogether, these two groups did not differ sig-nificantly, Hotelling's T2(4, IS) =9.9, p<.25. Although all the means differ in the direc-tion consistent with an effort hypothesis, theydo not reach conventional levels of signif-icance.

Summary

In an area where counterintuitive theoriesand puzzling results seem the rule, our resultsseem to support a common sense theory. Emo-tional stimuli such as our films affect subjec-tive experience, facial expressions, and physio-logical processes associated with an emotion.The effect of the stimuli does not, as the facialfeedback hypothesis predicts, depend on thefacial response. Nor, as the nonspecific arousaltheorists claim, are the physiological effectsthe same for all emotions (although peoplemay not pay any attention to the differences).Finally, covering up an emotion facially mayincrease physiological responding, but this in-crease does not appear to result from the emo-tion's having to "come out somewhere else"(as the hydraulic view would have). Instead,it seems plausible that the concentration re-quired to repress the outward expression of an

emotion has an effect on physiological re-sponse. Besides supporting the common senseview, these results also support a general self-perception hypothesis. A variety of cues—facial, physiological, situational-—may enterinto the subjective experience of an emotion.Our results suggest that the situational cuesreceive the most weight.

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