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The theory of facial feedback: gestures that create emotions

The theory of facial feedback: gestures that create emotions

March 25, 2024

The theory of feedback (of the feedback) facial proposes that the facial movements associated with a certain emotion can influence the affective experiences . It is one of the most representative theories of the psychological study of emotions and cognition, so it continues to be discussed and experienced constantly.

In this article we will see what is the theory of facial feedback , how it was defined and what some of its experimental verifications have been.

  • Related article: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

Theory of facial feedback Does the movement of the face create emotions?

The relationship between cognition and affective experiences has been widely studied by psychology. Among other things, an attempt has been made to explain how emotions occur, in what way we make them aware, and what their function is at the individual and social level.


Part of the research in this field suggests that affective experiences occur after we cognitively process a stimulus associated with an emotion. In turn, the latter would generate a series of facial reactions, for example a smile, that account for the emotion we are experiencing.

However, the theory of facial feedback, or theory of facial feedback, suggests that the opposite phenomenon may also occur: perform movements with the facial muscles related to a certain emotion, has a significant impact on how we experience it; even without the need for intermediate cognitive processing.

It is called facial "feedback" theory, precisely because it suggests that the muscular activation of the face can generate sensory feedback to the brain ; issue that finally allows us to consciously experience and process an emotion.


  • Related article: "Emotional psychology: main theories of emotion"

Background and related researchers

The theory of facial feedback has its antecedents in the theories of the late nineteenth century, which prioritize the role of muscle activation with the subjective experience of emotions .

These studies continue to this day, and have been developed in an important way since the 60's, when the theories about affectivity take on special relevance in the social and cognitive sciences.

In a compilation on the background of the facial feedback theory, Rojas (2016) reports that in the year of 1962, the American psychologist Silvan Tomkins proposed that the sensory feedback carried out by the muscles of the face, and the sensations of the skin, can generate an experience or emotional state without the need of cognitive intercession. This represented the first great antecedent of the theory of facial feedback.


Later the theories of Tournages and Ellsworth, in 1979, were added who spoke of the hypothesis of emotional modulation mediated by proprioception, which constitutes another of the great antecedents of the definition of this theory. Of the same decade The works made by Paul Ekman and Harrieh Oster are also recognized about emotions and facial expressions.

Between the decades of the 80's and 90's, many other researchers followed, who have carried out numerous experiments to verify if muscular movements can activate certain affective experiences. We will develop some of the most recent, as well as the theoretical updates that have derived from these.

The paradigm of the sharp ballpoint

In 1988, Fritz Strack, Leonard L. Martin and Sabine Stepper conducted a study where participants were asked to watch a series of funny cartoons. Meanwhile, a part of them were asked to hold a pen with their lips. The others were asked the same thing, but with their teeth.

The previous request had a reason: the facial posture that is done by having a ballpoint pen between the teeth contracts the greater zygomatic muscle, which we use to smile , which favors smiling facial expression. On the contrary, the facial movement made with the ballpoint pen between the lips contracts the orbicular muscle, which inhibits the muscular activity necessary to smile.

In this way, the researchers measured the facial activity associated with the smile, and wanted to see if the subjective experience of joy was related to that activity. The result was that the people who held the pen with their teeth they reported that the cartoons were more fun than those people who held the pen with their lips.

The conclusion was that facial expressions associated with some emotion can effectively transform the subjective experience of that emotion; Even when people are not fully aware of the facial gestures they are carrying out.

Is facial feedback inhibited when we are observed?

In 2016, almost three decades after Strack's experiment, Martin and Stepper, the psychologist and mathematician Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, together with his collaborators, replicated the sustained ballpoint pen experiment.

To everyone's surprise, they did not find enough evidence to sustain the effect of facial feedback. In response, Fritz Strack explained that the Wagenmakers experiment had been performed with a variable that was not present in the original study, which surely had affected and determined the new results.

This variable was a video camera that recorded the activity of each of the participants . According to Strack, the experience of being observed caused by the video camera would have significantly modified the effect of facial feedback.

The effect of external observation on the affective experience

Before the previous controversy, Tom Noah, Yaacov Schul and Ruth Mayo (2018) replicated the study again, first using a camera and then omitting its use. As part of their conclusions they propose that, far from being exclusive, the studies of Strack and Wagenmakers are consistent with theories that explain how feeling being affected affects internal signals related to the most basic activity; in this case with facial feedback.

In their research they found that the effect of facial feedback is notoriously when there is no electronic device recording (with which, the participants are not worried about the monitoring of their activity).

On the contrary, the effect diminishes when the participants know that they are being monitored by the video camera. The inhibition of the effect is explained as follows: the experience of feeling observed generates the need to adjust to external expectations , for which internal information is not available or is not ready.

Thus, Noah, Schul and Mayo (2018) concluded that the presence of the camera led the participants to adopt the position of a third perspective on the situation, and consequently, generated less tune before the facial feedback of their own muscles.

Bibliographic references:

  • Noah, T., Schul, Y. and Mayo, R. (2018). When both the Original Study and Its Failed Replication Are Correct: Feeling Observed Eliminates the Facial-Feedback Effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (114) 5: 657-664.
  • Rojas, S. (2016). Facial feedback and its effect on the evaluation of humor advertising. Final degree project. Psychology Program, Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.
  • Wagenmakers, E-J., Beek, T., Dijkhoff, L., Gronau, Q. F., Acosta, A., Adams, R. B., Jr., ... Zwaan, R. A. (2016). Registered replication report: Strack, Martin, & Stepper (1988). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 917-928.
  • Strack, F., Martin, LL. and Stepper, S. (1988). Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile: a nonobtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 54 (5): 7688-777.
  • Ekman, P. and Oster, H. (1979). Facial expressions of emotion. Annual Review of Psychology, 30: 527-554.

Paul Ekman: Outsmart Evolution and Master Your Emotions (March 2024).


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