The association of negative mood with automatic and effortful facial expression mimicry

Tara L Kraft-Feil; Rick E Ingram; Claire Gorey; Jazlyn H Luu; Marie P Cross; Sarah D Pressman

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1056535

The association of negative mood with automatic and effortful facial expression mimicry

Front Psychol. 2023 Apr 24:14:1056535. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1056535. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tara L Kraft-Feil¹, Rick E Ingram², Claire Gorey³, Jazlyn H Luu⁴, Marie P Cross⁵, Sarah D Pressman⁴

Affiliations

¹ CHI St. Alexius Health, Bismarck, ND, United States.
² Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States.
³ Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States.
⁴ Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
⁵ Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States.

Abstract

The natural process of mimicking the facial expressions of others is well established, as are the deficits in this reflexive behavior for individuals with clinical disorders such as depression. This study examines the extent of this deficit in non-clinical individuals with high transient negative mood, and whether it extends to both automatic and effortful emotion expression behavior. One hundred and thirty-six participants were shown happy, sad, and neutral faces, while electromyography (EMG) recorded facial muscle responses. Automatic (reflexive) mimicry was assessed while participants simply viewed facially expressive photographs, while effortful mimicry was monitored when individuals were told to intentionally copy the expressions in the photographs. Results indicated that high levels of negative mood were primarily associated with deficits in effortful mimicry of happy expressions, although some similar evidence was found in automatic mimicry of happy faces. Surprisingly, there were also ties between negative moods and inaccuracies in effortful mimicry of sad expressions (but not automatic mimicry). Inaccurate automatic and effortful mimicry were also tied with lower self-reported social support and greater loneliness. These results indicate that even in healthy individuals, transient and minor changes in negative mood are tied to deficiencies in facial mimicry at both the automatic and effortful level.

Keywords: electromyography; facial expression; loneliness; mimicry; muscle activation; negative affect; negative emotion; negative mood.