The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between social motives, emotional feelings, and smiling, with a view to demonstrating that smiling is determined by both factors but in different ways. To vary social motives, the authors manipulated two aspects of social context. Pairs of friends performed either the same or a different task in either the same or a different room, whereas a control group participated in the experiment alone. To vary emotional feelings, participants viewed each of two film clips that differed with respect to the intensity of positive emotional feelings they evoked. Dependent variables included facial activity, as measured by the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), self-reported emotional feelings, and measures of social motives. As predicted, both emotional feelings and social motives affected facial activity. The relevance of the results for theories of facial displays is discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baron, R. M. , & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
2.
Buck, R. (1984). The communication of emotion. New York: Guilford.
3.
Cacioppo, J. T. , Bush, L. K., & Tassinary, L. G. (1992). Microexpressive facial actions as a function of affective stimuli: Replication and extension. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 515-526.
4.
Carroll, J. M. , & Russell, J. A. (1997). Facial expressions in Hollywood’s portrayal of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 164-176.
5.
Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of emotions in man and animals. London: John Murray.
6.
Duchenne, G. B. A. (1990). The mechanism of human facial expression (R. A. Cuthbertson, Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1862)
7.
Ekman, P. (1973). Cross-cultural studies of facial expression. In P. Ekman (Ed.), Darwin and facial expression: A century of research in review (pp. 169-229). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
8.
Ekman, P. (1989). The argument and evidence about universals in facial expressions of emotions. In H. L. Wagner & A. S. R. Manstead (Eds.), Handbook of social psychophysiology (pp. 143-164). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
9.
Ekman, P. (1994). Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions: A reply to Russell’s mistaken critique. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 268-287.
10.
Ekman, P. , Davidson, R. J., & Friesen, W. V. (1990). The Duchenne smile: Emotional expression and brain physiology II. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 342-353.
11.
Ekman, P. , & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage and coding. Semiotica, 1, 49-98.
12.
Ekman, P. , & Friesen, W. V. (1971). Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 124-129.
13.
Ekman, P. , & Friesen, W. V. (1978). The Facial Action Coding System. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
14.
Ekman, P. , & Friesen, W. V. (1982). Felt, false, and miserable smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 6, 238-252.
15.
Ekman, P. , Friesen, W. V., & Ancoli, S. (1980). Facial signs of emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1125-1134.
16.
Ekman, P. , Friesen, W. V., & O’Sullivan, M. (1988). Smiles when lying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 414-420.
17.
Frank, M. G. , & Ekman, P. (1993). Not all smiles are created equal: The differences between enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles. Humor, 6, 9-26.
18.
Fridlund, A. J. (1991a). Evolution and facial action in reflex, social motive and paralanguage. Biological Psychology, 32, 3-100.
19.
Fridlund, A. J. (1991b). Sociality of solitary smiling: Potentiation by an implicit audience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 229-240.
20.
Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
21.
Fridlund, A. J. , Sabini, J. P., Hedlund, L. E., Schaut, J. A., Shenker, J .I., & Knauer, M. J. (1990). Audience effects on solitary faces during imagery: Displaying to the people in your head. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 14, 113-137.
22.
Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
23.
Frijda, N. H. (1995). Expression, emotion, neither, or both? (A review of Fridlund, 1994). Cognition and Emotion, 9, 617-635.
24.
Frijda, N. H. , & Tcherkassof, A. (1997). Facial expression as modes of action readiness. In J. A. Russell & J. M. Fernández Dols (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 78-102). New York: Cambridge University Press.
25.
Goldenthal, P. , Johnston, R. E., & Kraut, R. E. (1981). Smiling, appeasement, and the silent-bared teeth display. Ethology and Sociobiology, 2, 127-133.
26.
Harris, P. L. (1989). Children and emotion: The development of psychological understanding. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
27.
Hess, U. , Banse, R., & Kappas, A. (1995). The intensity of facial expression is determined by underlying affective state and social situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 280-288.
28.
Izard, C. E. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum.
29.
Jakobs, E. , Fischer, A. H., & Manstead, A. S. R. (1997). Emotional experience as a function of social context: The role of the other. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 21, 103-130.
30.
Jakobs, E. , Manstead, A. S. R., & Fischer, A. H. (1998). Sociality effects on negative facial displays: Physical presence and the relationship with the other. Manuscript submitted for publication.
31.
Jones, S. S. , & Raag, T. (1989). Smile production in older infants: The importance of a social recipient for the facial signal. Child Development, 60, 811-818.
32.
Jones, S. S. , Collins, K., & Hong, H. W. (1991). An audience effect on smile production in 10-month-old infants. Psychological Science, 2, 45-49.
33.
Manstead, A. S. R. , Fischer, A. H., & Jakobs, E. (in press). The social and emotional functions of facial displays. In P. Philippot, R. S. Feldman, & E. J. Coats (Eds.), The social context of nonverbal behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.
34.
Ortony, A. , & Turner, T. J. (1990). What’s basic about basic emotions?Psychological Review, 97, 315-331.
35.
Russell, J. A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review of cross-cultural studies. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 102-141.
36.
Saarni, C. (1979). Children’s understanding of display rules for expressive behavior. Developmental Psychology, 15, 424-429.
37.
Saarni, C. (1984). An observational study of children attempting to monitor their expressive behavior. Child Development, 55, 1504-1513.
38.
Scherer, K. R. (1984). Emotion as a multicomponent process: A model and some cross-cultural data. In P. Shaver (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 37-63). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
39.
Scherer. K. R. (1992). What does facial expression express? In K. T. Strongman (Ed.), International review of studies on emotion (Vol. 2, pp. 140-165). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
