Five-year-olds' facial mimicry following social ostracism is modulated by attachment security

PLoS One. 2020 Dec 29;15(12):e0240680. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240680. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Social ostracism triggers an increase in affiliative behaviours. One such behaviour is the rapid copying of others' facial expressions, called facial mimicry. Insofar, it remains unknown how individual differences in intrinsic affiliation motivation regulate responses to social ostracism during early development. We examined children's facial mimicry following ostracism as modulated by individual differences in the affiliation motivation, expressed in their attachment tendencies. Resistant and avoidant tendencies are characterized by high and low affiliation motivation, and were hypothesized to lead to facial mimicry enhancement or suppression towards an ostracizing partner, respectively. Following an ostracism manipulation in which children played a virtual game (Cyberball) with an includer and an excluder peer, mimicry of the two peers' happy and sad facial expressions was recorded with electromyography (EMG). Attachment was assessed via parent-report questionnaire. We found that 5-year-olds smiled to sad facial expressions of the excluder peer, while they showed no facial reactions for the includer peer. Neither resistant nor avoidant tendencies predicted facial mimicry to the excluder peer. Yet, securely attached children smiled towards the excluder peer, when sad facial expressions were displayed. In conclusion, these findings suggest a modulation of facial reactions following ostracism by early attachment.

Publication types

  • Observational Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Child, Preschool
  • Electromyography
  • Emotions / physiology
  • Facial Expression*
  • Facial Muscles / physiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Imitative Behavior / physiology*
  • Individuality
  • Interpersonal Relations*
  • Male
  • Motivation
  • Object Attachment*
  • Peer Group
  • Social Isolation / psychology*
  • Video Games / psychology

Grants and funding

This research was supported by an Aspasia Prize of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded to SH. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.