Friendship habits questionnaire: A measure of group- versus dyadic-oriented socializing styles.

Friendships are central to our social lives, yet little is known about individual differences associated with the number of friends people enjoy spending time with. Here we present the Friendship Habits Questionnaire (FHQ), a new scale of group versus dyadic-oriented friendship styles. Three studies investigated the psychometric properties of group-oriented friendships and the relevant individual differences. The initially developed questionnaire measured individual differences in extraversion as well as desire for intimacy, competitiveness, and group identification, traits that previous research links with socializing in groups versus one-to-one friendships. In three validation studies involving more than 800 participants (353 men, age M = 25.76) and using principal and confirmatory factor analyses, we found that the structure of the FHQ is best described with four dimensions: extraversion, intimacy, positive group identification, and negative group identification. Therefore, competitiveness was dropped from the final version of the FHQ. Moreover, FHQ scores reliably predicted the size of friendship groups in which people enjoy socializing, suggesting good construct validity. Together, our results document individual differences in pursuing group versus dyadic-oriented friendships and provide a new tool for measuring such differences.

An epidemic context elicits more prosocial decision-making in an intergroup social dilemma.

Societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic have the quality of a social dilemma, in that they compel people to choose between acting in their own interests or the interests of a larger collective. Empirical evidence shows that the choices people make in a social dilemma are influenced by how this decision is framed. In four studies, we examined how context of an epidemic influences resource allocation decisions in a nested social dilemma task, where participants share resources between themselves, their subgroup, and a larger collective. Participants consistently allocated more resources to the collective in the context of the Ebola epidemic than in the context of a neighborhood improvement project, and these choices were strongly associated with prescriptive social norms. Together, the findings provide an experimental demonstration that the context of a quickly spreading disease encourages people to act more prosocially.

Altering Facial Movements Abolishes Neural Mirroring of Facial Expressions.

People tend to automatically imitate others' facial expressions of emotion. That reaction, termed "facial mimicry" has been linked to sensorimotor simulation-a process in which the observer's brain recreates and mirrors the emotional experience of the other person, potentially enabling empathy and deep, motivated processing of social signals. However, the neural mechanisms that underlie sensorimotor simulation remain unclear. This study tests how interfering with facial mimicry by asking participants to hold a pen in their mouth influences the activity of the human mirror neuron system, indexed by the desynchronization of the EEG mu rhythm. This response arises from sensorimotor brain areas during observed and executed movements and has been linked with empathy. We recorded EEG during passive viewing of dynamic facial expressions of anger, fear, and happiness, as well as nonbiological moving objects. We examine mu desynchronization under conditions of free versus altered facial mimicry and show that desynchronization is present when adult participants can freely move but not when their facial movements are inhibited. Our findings highlight the importance of motor activity and facial expression in emotion communication. They also have important implications for behaviors that involve occupying or hiding the lower part of the face.

Dominance, reward, and affiliation smiles modulate the meaning of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour.

We investigated the effects of different types of smiles on the perception of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour. In five studies, participants assigned to one group played an economic game with a representative of another group. In an initial round, the representative acted uncooperatively by favouring their group and then displayed a dominance, reward, or affiliation smile. Participants rated the motives of the representative and played a second round of the game with a different member of the same outgroup. Following uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour, affiliation smiles communicated less positivity and superiority, and a greater desire to both repair the relationship between groups and change the uncooperative decision than reward or dominance smiles. Perceptions of a desire to repair the relationship and to change the decision were associated with trust and cooperation in a subsequent round of the game. Together, these findings show that smiles that are subtly different in their morphology can convey different messages and highlight the importance of these expressions in influencing the perceptions of others' intentions.

The Pacified Face: Early Embodiment Processes and the Use of Dummies.

Few things affect us as much as facial expressions, as they inform us about others' feelings and intentions, thereby influencing our own emotions and behaviors. A substantial body of literature links the critical abilities of recognizing and understanding emotion displays with facial mimicry, a sensorimotor process involving rapid imitation of perceived expressions. For example, blocking or altering facial mimicry in adults leads to disruptions in judgments in emotion recognition or emotional language processing. The present review focuses on pacifier use in infancy, a common practice that has the potential to interfere with infants' facial movements in ways identical to laboratory paradigms designed to block facial mimicry. Despite this similarity and the widespread use of infant soothers, little is known about their long-term effects. Here we review studies exploring the psychological correlates and implications of pacifier use. In particular, we discuss how soothers may interfere with the development of social skills in infants and present evidence linking pacifier use with disrupted adults' mimicry of facial expressions displayed by infants. Other preliminary findings reveal negative correlations between the use of soothers and children's spontaneous facial mimicry as well as emotional competence of young adults. Such studies, although correlational, suggest that this widespread parenting practice may affect the development of social skills by influencing emotional coordination. We discuss the implications of these findings and propose avenues for future research that can provide insights into the role of embodied processes in the development of emotional competence and adult functioning.

Historical Migration Patterns Shape Contemporary Cultures of Emotion.

Human emotional behavior varies across cultures. Smiling at a passing stranger on the street may seem perfectly normal in one culture and profoundly strange or even suspicious in another. What are the origins of cultural differences in emotional expression, communication, and regulation? We review new evidence in favor of one answer to this question. A socioecological factor, historical heterogeneity-defined as the ancestral diversity of the world's regions based on human migration patterns over centuries-accounts for important cultural variations in emotional experience and expression. We summarize findings from studies of large global samples that link the migratory history of a country's population with present-day cultural differences in how overtly and clearly emotions are expressed to others, in the frequency and meaning of smiles, and in associated character traits. New research also extends the analysis to the historical heterogeneity of the United States, and country-level findings are replicated at the level of the states. We suggest that enduring emotional behaviors and traits evolve from the opportunities and challenges posed by the commingling of people of diverse ancestries. We conclude by highlighting the questions and challenges for future research stemming from this approach.

Intergroup emotional exchange: Ingroup guilt and outgroup anger increase resource allocation in trust games.

Intergroup exchanges are an integral part of social life but are compromised when one group pursues its interests at another group's expense. The present research investigates whether expressing emotion can mitigate the negative consequences of such actions. We examine how emotions communicated by either an ingroup or outgroup member following an ingroup member's breach of trust affect other ingroup members' feelings of guilt and pride, and subsequent allocation of resources. In both studies, groups of participants played a two-round trust game with another group. In round one, they observed a member of their own group failing to reciprocate a trusting move by the outgroup. In Study 1 (N = 85), an outgroup member then communicated anger or disappointment, whereas in Study 2 (N = 164), an ingroup member then communicated happiness or guilt. Comparisons with no-emotion control conditions revealed that expressions of outgroup anger and ingroup guilt increased participants' allocations to an outgroup member in round two. The effect of an outgroup member's anger expression was mediated by participants' diminished feelings of pride about the ingroup action, whereas the effect of an ingroup member's guilt expression was mediated by participants' own feelings of guilt. Taken together, these findings support a social appraisal approach and highlight the roles that pride and guilt can play in shaping intergroup resource allocations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Heterogeneity of long-history migration predicts smiling, laughter and positive emotion across the globe and within the United States.

Recent findings demonstrate that heterogeneity of long-history migration predicts present-day emotion behaviors and norms. Residents of countries characterized by high ancestral diversity display emotion expressions that are easier to decode by observers, endorse norms of higher emotion expressivity, and smile more in response to certain stimuli than residents of countries that lack ancestral diversity. We build on the extant findings and investigate historical heterogeneity as a predictor of daily smiling, laughter, and positive emotion across the world's countries and the states of the United States. Study 1 finds that historical heterogeneity is positively associated with self-reports of smiling, laughter, and positive emotions in the Gallup World Poll when controlling for GDP and present-day population diversity. Study 2 extends the findings to effects of long-history migration within the United States. We estimated the average percentage of foreign-born citizens in each state between 1850 and 2010 based on US Census information as an indicator of historical heterogeneity. Consistent with the world findings of Study 1, historical heterogeneity predicted smiling, laughter, and positive, but not negative, emotion. The relationships remained significant when controlling for per capita income and present-day population diversity of each state. Together, the findings further demonstrate the important role of long-history migration in shaping emotion cultures of countries and states, which persist beyond the original socio-ecological conditions, and open promising avenues for cross-cultural research.

Dynamics Matter: Recognition of Reward, Affiliative, and Dominance Smiles From Dynamic vs. Static Displays.

Smiles are distinct and easily recognizable facial expressions, yet they markedly differ in their meanings. According to a recent theoretical account, smiles can be classified based on three fundamental social functions which they serve: expressing positive affect and rewarding self and others (reward smile), creating and maintaining social bonds (affiliative smile), and negotiating social status (dominance smiles) (Niedenthal et al., 2010; Martin et al., 2017). While there is evidence for distinct morphological features of these smiles, their categorization only starts to be investigated in human faces. Moreover, the factors influencing this process - such as facial mimicry or display mode - remain yet unknown. In the present study, we examine the recognition of reward, affiliative, and dominance smiles in static and dynamic portrayals, and explore how interfering with facial mimicry affects such classification. Participants (N = 190) were presented with either static or dynamic displays of the three smile types, whilst their ability to mimic was free or restricted via a pen-in-mouth procedure. For each stimulus they rated the extent to which the expression represents a reward, an affiliative, or a dominance smile. Higher than chance accuracy rates revealed that participants were generally able to differentiate between the three smile types. In line with our predictions, recognition performance was lower in the static than dynamic condition, but this difference was only significant for affiliative smiles. No significant effects of facial muscle restriction were observed, suggesting that the ability to mimic might not be necessary for the distinction between the three functional smiles. Together, our findings support previous evidence on reward, affiliative, and dominance smiles by documenting their perceptual distinctiveness. They also replicate extant observations on the dynamic advantage in expression perception and suggest that this effect may be especially pronounced in the case of ambiguous facial expressions, such as affiliative smiles.

Smiles as Multipurpose Social Signals.

The human smile is highly variable in both its form and the social contexts in which it is displayed. A social-functional account identifies three distinct smile expressions defined in terms of their effects on the perceiver: reward smiles reinforce desired behavior; affiliation smiles invite and maintain social bonds; and dominance smiles manage hierarchical relationships. Mathematical modeling uncovers the appearance of the smiles, and both human and Bayesian classifiers validate these distinctions. New findings link laughter to reward, affiliation, and dominance, and research suggests that these functions of smiles are recognized across cultures. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the smile can be productively investigated according to how it assists the smiler in meeting the challenges and opportunities inherent in human social living.

Intergroup Contact and Social Change: Implications of Negative and Positive Contact for Collective Action in Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups.

Previous research has shown that (a) positive intergroup contact with an advantaged group can discourage collective action among disadvantaged-group members and (b) positive intergroup contact can encourage advantaged-group members to take action on behalf of disadvantaged outgroups. Two studies investigated the effects of negative as well as positive intergroup contact. Study 1 ( n = 482) found that negative but not positive contact with heterosexual people was associated with sexual-minority students' engagement in collective action (via group identification and perceived discrimination). Among heterosexual students, positive and negative contacts were associated with, respectively, more and less LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) activism. Study 2 ( N = 1,469) found that only negative contact (via perceived discrimination) predicted LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students' collective action intentions longitudinally while only positive contact predicted heterosexual/cisgender students' LGBT activism. Implications for the relationship between intergroup contact, collective action, and social change are discussed.

Feelings and contexts: socioecological influences on the nonverbal expression of emotion.

Despite their relative universality, nonverbal displays of emotion are often sources of cross-cultural misunderstandings. The present article considers the relevance of historical and present socio-ecological contexts, such as heterogeneity of long-history migration, pathogen prevalence, and residential mobility for cross-cultural variation in emotional expression. We review recent evidence linking these constructs to psychological processes and discuss how the findings are relevant to the nonverbal communication of emotion. We hold that socioecological variables, because of their specificity and tractability, provide a promising framework for explaining why different cultures developed varying modes of emotional expression.

Functional Smiles: Tools for Love, Sympathy, and War.

A smile is the most frequent facial expression, but not all smiles are equal. A social-functional account holds that smiles of reward, affiliation, and dominance serve basic social functions, including rewarding behavior, bonding socially, and negotiating hierarchy. Here, we characterize the facial-expression patterns associated with these three types of smiles. Specifically, we modeled the facial expressions using a data-driven approach and showed that reward smiles are symmetrical and accompanied by eyebrow raising, affiliative smiles involve lip pressing, and dominance smiles are asymmetrical and contain nose wrinkling and upper-lip raising. A Bayesian-classifier analysis and a detection task revealed that the three smile types are highly distinct. Finally, social judgments made by a separate participant group showed that the different smile types convey different social messages. Our results provide the first detailed description of the physical form and social messages conveyed by these three types of functional smiles and document the versatility of these facial expressions.

Evidence of Rapid Modulation by Social Information of Subjective, Physiological, and Neural Responses to Emotional Expressions.

Recent research suggests that conceptual or emotional factors could influence the perceptual processing of stimuli. In this article, we aimed to evaluate the effect of social information (positive, negative, or no information related to the character of the target) on subjective (perceived and felt valence and arousal), physiological (facial mimicry) as well as on neural (P100 and N170) responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions (EFE) that varied from neutral to one of the six basic emotions. Across three studies, the results showed reduced ratings of valence and arousal of EFE associated with incongruent social information (Study 1), increased electromyographical responses (Study 2), and significant modulation of P100 and N170 components (Study 3) when EFE were associated with social (positive and negative) information (vs. no information). These studies revealed that positive or negative social information reduces subjective responses to incongruent EFE and produces a similar neural and physiological boost of the early perceptual processing of EFE irrespective of their congruency. In conclusion, the article suggests that the presence of positive or negative social context modulates early physiological and neural activity preceding subsequent behavior.

Social Context Disambiguates the Interpretation of Laughter.

Despite being a pan-cultural phenomenon, laughter is arguably the least understood behaviour deployed in social interaction. As well as being a response to humour, it has other important functions including promoting social affiliation, developing cooperation and regulating competitive behaviours. This multi-functional feature of laughter marks it as an adaptive behaviour central to facilitating social cohesion. However, it is not clear how laughter achieves this social cohesion. We consider two approaches to understanding how laughter facilitates social cohesion - the 'representational' approach and the 'affect-induction' approach. The representational approach suggests that laughter conveys information about the expresser's emotional state, and the listener decodes this information to gain knowledge about the laugher's felt state. The affect-induction approach views laughter as a tool to influence the affective state of listeners. We describe a modified version of the affect-induction approach, in which laughter is combined with additional factors - including social context, verbal information, other social signals and knowledge of the listener's emotional state - to influence an interaction partner. This view asserts that laughter by itself is ambiguous: the same laughter may induce positive or negative affect in a listener, with the outcome determined by the combination of these additional factors. Here we describe two experiments exploring which of these approaches accurately describes laughter. Participants judged the genuineness of audio-video recordings of social interactions containing laughter. Unknown to the participants the recordings contained either the original laughter or replacement laughter from a different part of the interaction. When replacement laughter was matched for intensity, genuineness judgements were similar to judgements of the original unmodified recordings. When replacement laughter was not matched for intensity, genuineness judgements were generally significantly lower. These results support the affect-induction view of laughter by suggesting that laughter is inherently underdetermined and ambiguous, and that its interpretation is determined by the context in which it occurs.

Heterogeneity of long-history migration predicts emotion recognition accuracy.

Recent work (Rychlowska et al., 2015) demonstrated the power of a relatively new cultural dimension, historical heterogeneity, in predicting cultural differences in the endorsement of emotion expression norms. Historical heterogeneity describes the number of source countries that have contributed to a country's present-day population over the last 500 years. People in cultures originating from a large number of source countries may have historically benefited from greater and clearer emotional expressivity, because they lacked a common language and well-established social norms. We therefore hypothesized that in addition to endorsing more expressive display rules, individuals from heterogeneous cultures will also produce facial expressions that are easier to recognize by people from other cultures. By reanalyzing cross-cultural emotion recognition data from 92 papers and 82 cultures, we show that emotion expressions of people from heterogeneous cultures are more easily recognized by observers from other cultures than are the expressions produced in homogeneous cultures. Heterogeneity influences expression recognition rates alongside the individualism-collectivism of the perceivers' culture, as more individualistic cultures were more accurate in emotion judgments than collectivistic cultures. This work reveals the present-day behavioral consequences of long-term historical migration patterns and demonstrates the predictive power of historical heterogeneity. (PsycINFO Database Record

Fashioning the Face: Sensorimotor Simulation Contributes to Facial Expression Recognition.

When we observe a facial expression of emotion, we often mimic it. This automatic mimicry reflects underlying sensorimotor simulation that supports accurate emotion recognition. Why this is so is becoming more obvious: emotions are patterns of expressive, behavioral, physiological, and subjective feeling responses. Activation of one component can therefore automatically activate other components. When people simulate a perceived facial expression, they partially activate the corresponding emotional state in themselves, which provides a basis for inferring the underlying emotion of the expresser. We integrate recent evidence in favor of a role for sensorimotor simulation in emotion recognition. We then connect this account to a domain-general understanding of how sensory information from multiple modalities is integrated to generate perceptual predictions in the brain.

Heterogeneity of long-history migration explains cultural differences in reports of emotional expressivity and the functions of smiles.

A small number of facial expressions may be universal in that they are produced by the same basic affective states and recognized as such throughout the world. However, other aspects of emotionally expressive behavior vary widely across culture. Just why do they vary? We propose that some cultural differences in expressive behavior are determined by historical heterogeneity, or the extent to which a country's present-day population descended from migration from numerous vs. few source countries over a period of 500 y. Our reanalysis of data on cultural rules for displaying emotion from 32 countries [n = 5,340; Matsumoto D, Yoo S, Fontaine J (2008) J Cross Cult Psychol 39(1):55-74] reveals that historical heterogeneity explains substantial, unique variance in the degree to which individuals believe that emotions should be openly expressed. We also report an original study of the underlying states that people believe are signified by a smile. Cluster analysis applied to data from nine countries (n = 726), including Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States, reveals that countries group into "cultures of smiling" determined by historical heterogeneity. Factor analysis shows that smiles sort into three social-functional subtypes: pleasure, affiliative, and dominance. The relative importance of these smile subtypes varies as a function of historical heterogeneity. These findings thus highlight the power of social-historical factors to explain cross-cultural variation in emotional expression and smile behavior.

Blocking mimicry makes true and false smiles look the same.

Recent research suggests that facial mimicry underlies accurate interpretation of subtle facial expressions. In three experiments, we manipulated mimicry and tested its role in judgments of the genuineness of true and false smiles. Experiment 1 used facial EMG to show that a new mouthguard technique for blocking mimicry modifies both the amount and the time course of facial reactions. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants rated true and false smiles either while wearing mouthguards or when allowed to freely mimic the smiles with or without additional distraction, namely holding a squeeze ball or wearing a finger-cuff heart rate monitor. Results showed that blocking mimicry compromised the decoding of true and false smiles such that they were judged as equally genuine. Together the experiments highlight the role of facial mimicry in judging subtle meanings of facial expressions.