Chapter 2 - 9

09 Psychology

Listen to a lecture in a psychology class. Fill in the diagram with the information that you hear.

M: To continue our discussion on emotion, today we’re going to go over the facial hypothesis−sorry, I mean the facial feedback hypothesis. The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that our emotions are activated by our facial expressions.

In other words, the type of face we make triggers what we feel. Everyone got that? According to the facial feedback hypothesis, our facial expressions create the emotions that we experience.

Let me go a little deeper to show you what I mean.

We all know that we make certain facial expressions when we experience an emotion. In a previous discussion, we talked about how these expressions are, for the most part, universal.

For instance, when two people from opposite parts of the world experience a distressing situation, their eyes open wider, their eyebrows shoot up into their forehead area and their lips may open partially.

So, yeah, people everywhere exhibit similar facial expressions during similar emotional situations, but what do our facial expressions have to do with emotion?

Well, our first inclination would be to assume that we make an appropriate face in response to an emotion.

For example, we smile because we feel happy and we frown because we feel sad, but the facial feedback hypothesis states that the facial expressions we make actually activate or cause the emotions we experience.

We feel happy because we smile, not the other way around.

The facial feedback hypothesis works like this.

Say we’re put in a situation that calls for a certain emotion. Perhaps we are in a situation that calls for an emotion of sadness.

First, our brain registers the sad situation and sends out a signal. Now, according to the facial feedback hypothesis, this signal activates the part of our brain that controls facial movement.

So all this happens in the brain, and only after we exhibit the appropriate facial movement do we feel the emotion.

Let me take a little detour here to go over what I mean by facial movement. OK, so uh, we have 80 facial muscles that control our face, 36 of which control facial expressions.

These muscles react to form different expressions.

So the next thing to happen in a sad situation is that our facial muscles respond to the brain’s signal by drawing the inner corners of our eyelids closer together and pulling our lips downward in a frown.

But at this point, we still don’t experience the emotion of sadness.

Our faces react, but our emotions do not at this point. Finally, feedback from our faces reaches the appropriate program in the brain that controls our emotions.

This feedback then activates that program and triggers the emotional response. Only now do we actually experience the emotion of sadness.

If this theory is correct, then the facial expressions that we make are essential to how we experience emotion.

So theoretically, a person who lacked control of his facial muscles wouldn’t experience any emotion, right?

But how do we test the accuracy of this theory? OK, right now, I want everyone to smile. Now I want everyone to frown.

Good.

Our smiling should have caused us to experience the emotion of happiness, and our frowning should have caused us to feel sad.

Did this happen? Did any one of you feel suddenly happy or sad based on the expression you made?

Probably not. So at first, the facial feedback hypothesis appears to be wrong.

However, after numerous studies researchers did find something interesting.

They did not find that making a facial expression causes emotion, but they did find that feedback from our faces can either increase or suppress an emotion that a person is already experiencing.

In other words, the facial expression exaggerates what you’re already feeling.

Say you’re experiencing a joyful moment and you smile. The smile alone did not cause you to become happy; however, it can increase the intensity of your happiness to make you even more joyful.

Or say you’re in a difficult situation where you have to look happy. In this case, a smile probably won’t turn your misery into happiness.

but it may serve to alleviate your misery somewhat. The feedback from your face really can help, even if it’s not in the way originally predicted!

So in conclusion, the facial feedback hypothesis is both correct and incorrect. While evidence has revealed that facial feedback does not cause emotion to occur, it has also proven that facial feedback does have at least a slight influence over the intensity of our emotions.

1) What does the facial feedback hypothesis suggest?

2) Which of the following happens after the brain registers a sad situation, according to the theory?

3) What can a smile do for someone in a sad situation, according to the professor?