BRIEF REPORT

Does Blocking Facial Feedback Via Botulinum Toxin Injections Decrease Depression? A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis

Researchers have proposed that blocking facial feedback via glabellar-region botulinum toxin injections (GBTX) can reduce depression. Random-effects meta-analyses of studies that administered GBTX to individuals with depression indicate that, 6 weeks postintervention, GBTX groups were significantly less depressed compared to placebo groups ( d = 0.83) and pretreatment levels ( d = 1.57). However, we noted the following concerns: (a) effect sizes were extraordinarily large, (b) authors failed to provide information to compute 51% of relevant effect sizes, (c) 96% of effect sizes came from studies conducted by investigators with conflicts of interest, (d) there is some evidence of publication bias, and (e) studies used ineffective blinding procedures. These considerations suggest that confidence in GBTX as a treatment for depression is premature.

The paradox of moral cleansing: When physical cleansing leads to increased contamination concerns

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Moral threats, including threats to moral self-worth, have been associated with contamination concerns. Paradoxically, although self-cleansing provides temporary relief, it can worsen feelings of contamination. Self-affirmation might be an effective strategy, especially following obsessive type cognitions (e.g., responsibility beliefs) when moral threats are reactivated.

METHODS

In Experiment 1, participants recalled an immoral deed and then self-cleansed (using a hand-wipe), completed a control task, or self-affirmed. Contamination concerns were subsequently measured by a washing task. In Experiment 2, the same procedure was used but obsessive-type cognitions were activated by asking participants a series of questions about obsessive beliefs.

RESULTS

As expected, relative to the control condition, both self-affirmation and self-cleansing resulted in less subsequent repeated washing behaviour in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, when the immoral recall was followed by activation of obsessive-type cognitions, self-cleansing led to more guilt and repeated washing than self-affirmation and control. Rather than alleviating feelings of contamination, physical self-cleansing led to more contamination concerns and guilt when in the context of activated obsessive-type cognitions, possibly because it paradoxically makes (moral) cleanliness goals salient.

LIMITATIONS

Future research needs to test clinical populations, for whom contamination concerns are all the more central.

CONCLUSIONS

This research provides further evidence of the influence of moral threat in contamination concerns, and the limits of moral cleansing. Self-affirmation resulted in less contamination concerns under both a neutral condition and activated obsessive type cognitions.

Can Tai Chi and Qigong Postures Shape Our Mood? Toward an Embodied Cognition Framework for Mind-Body Research

Dynamic and static body postures are a defining characteristic of mind-body practices such as Tai Chi and Qigong (TCQ). A growing body of evidence supports the hypothesis that TCQ may be beneficial for psychological health, including management and prevention of depression and anxiety. Although a variety of causal factors have been identified as potential mediators of such health benefits, physical posture, despite its visible prominence, has been largely overlooked. We hypothesize that body posture while standing and/or moving may be a key therapeutic element mediating the influence of TCQ on psychological health. In the present paper, we summarize existing experimental and observational evidence that suggests a bi-directional relationship between body posture and mental states. Drawing from embodied cognitive science, we provide a theoretical framework for further investigation into this interrelationship. We discuss the challenges involved in such an investigation and propose suggestions for future studies. Despite theoretical and practical challenges, we propose that the role of posture in mind-body exercises such as TCQ should be considered in future research.

The effect of facial feedback on the evaluation of statements describing everyday situations and the role of awareness

According to theories of embodiment enacting a smile or a frown can positively or negatively influence one's evaluations, even without awareness of one's facial activity. While some previous studies found evidence for facial feedback effects, recent replication attempts could not confirm these findings. Are our decisions throughout the day amenable to the state of our facial muscles? We tested the effect of smiling and frowning on the evaluation of emotional sentences describing everyday situations. While most previous studies based their assessment of awareness on verbal debriefing interviews without explicitly defined criteria, we employed a written debriefing questionnaire in order to avoid potential bias when identifying participants' awareness. Our results indicate that smiling/frowning increased/decreased sentence ratings only for participants aware of their expressions. This emphasizes the importance of more rigorous awareness tests in facial feedback studies. Our results support the view that facial feedback cannot necessarily influence us without conscious mediation.

Mechanisms of embodiment

This paper is a critical review of recent studies demonstrating the mechanism of sensorimotor simulation in different cognitive domains. Empirical studies that specify conditions under which embodiment occurs in different domains will be discussed and evaluated. Examples of relevant domains are language comprehension (Tucker and Ellis, 1998), autobiographical memory (Dijkstra et al., 2007), gestures (Alibali et al., 2014), facial mimicry (Stel and Vonk, 2010), and problem solving (Wiemers et al., 2014). The focus of the review is on supporting claims regarding sensorimotor simulation as well as on factors that modulate dynamic relationships between sensorimotor components in action and cognitive domains, such as expertise (Boschker et al., 2002). This discussion takes place within the context of currently debated issues, specifically the need to specify the underlying mechanisms of embodied representations (Zwaan, 2014; Körner et al., 2015).

An evidence-based approach to an ancient pursuit: systematic review on converting online contact into a first date

OBJECTIVE

To determine, for people seeking a date online, what activities and behaviours have an effect on the chances of converting electronic communication into a face-to-face meeting.

METHODS

Literature in psychology, sociology, and computer, behavioural and neurocognitive sciences that informed effective online dating was captured through electronic searching of Psychinfo, Medline and Embase in November 2013. Study selection and meta-narrative synthesis were carried out in duplicate.

RESULTS

There were 3938 initial citations and 86 studies were synthesised. Initial interest was best captured through: a desirable screen name starting with a letter in the top half of the alphabet; an attractive still picture; and a fluent headline message. For those attracted to browse into the profile, a description of personal traits increased likeability when it: showed who the dater was and what they were looking for in a 70:30 ratio; stayed close to reality; and employed simple language with humour added. Invitations were most successful in obtaining a response from the potential date when they: were short personalised messages addressing a trait in their profile; rhymed with their screen name or headline message; and extended genuine compliments. Online communication was most effective in leading to an in-person meeting if there were: a genuine interest; a rapid turnaround; reciprocity in self-disclosure; mimicry of body movements on the webcam; avoidance of criticism; humour; uncertainty about whether there was likeability; and an early move from electronic chat to a date.

CONCLUSIONS

Attraction and persuasion research provides an evidence-based approach to online dating.

How does this make you feel? A comparison of four affect induction procedures

Affect is a fundamental aspect of the human mind. An increasing number of experiments attempt to examine the influence of affect on other psychological phenomena. To accomplish this research, it is necessary to experimentally modify participants' affective states. In the present experiment, we compared the efficacy of four commonly used affect induction procedures. Participants (38 healthy undergraduate students: 18 males) were randomly assigned to either a pleasant or an unpleasant affect induction group, and then underwent four different affect induction procedures: (1) recall of an affectively salient event accompanied by affectively congruent music, (2) script-driven guided imagery, (3) viewing images while listening to affectively congruent music, and (4) posing affective facial actions, body postures, and vocal expressions. All four affect induction methods were successful in inducing both pleasant and unpleasant affective states. The viewing image with music and recall with music procedures were most effective in enhancing positive affect, whereas the viewing image with music procedure was most effective in enhancing negative affect. Implications for the scientific study of affect are discussed.

Bodily Influences on Emotional Feelings: Accumulating Evidence and Extensions of William James’s Theory of Emotion

William James’s theory of emotion has been controversial since its inception, and a basic analysis of Cannon’s critique is provided. Research on the impact of facial expressions, expressive behaviors, and visceral responses on emotional feelings are each reviewed. A good deal of evidence supports James’s theory that these types of bodily feedback, along with perceptions of situational cues, are each important parts of emotional feelings. Extensions to James’s theory are also reviewed, including evidence of individual differences in the effect of bodily responses on emotional experience.

Emotion regulation through execution, observation, and imagery of emotional movements

According to Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, emotions are generated by conveying the current state of the body to the brain through interoceptive and proprioceptive afferent input. The resulting brain activation patterns represent unconscious emotions and correlate with subjective feelings. This proposition implies a corollary that the deliberate control of motor behavior could regulate feelings. We tested this possibility, hypothesizing that engaging in movements associated with a certain emotion would enhance that emotion and/or the corresponding valence. Furthermore, because motor imagery and observation are thought to activate the same mirror-neuron network engaged during motor execution, they might also activate the same emotional processing circuits, leading to similar emotional effects. Therefore, we measured the effects of motor execution, motor imagery and observation of whole-body dynamic expressions of emotions (happiness, sadness, fear) on affective state. All three tasks enhanced the corresponding affective state, indicating their potential to regulate emotions.

Emotional regulation impairments following severe traumatic brain injury: an investigation of the body and facial feedback effects

The object of this study was to evaluate the combined effect of body and facial feedback in adults who had suffered from a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) to gain some understanding of their difficulties in the regulation of negative emotions. Twenty-four participants with TBI and 28 control participants adopted facial expressions and body postures according to specific instructions and maintained these positions for 10 s. Expressions and postures entailed anger, sadness, and happiness as well as a neutral (baseline) condition. After each expression/posture manipulation, participants evaluated their subjective emotional state (including cheerfulness, sadness, and irritation). TBI participants were globally less responsive to the effects of body and facial feedback than control participants, F(1,50) = 5.89, p = .02, η(2) = .11. More interestingly, the TBI group differed from the Control group across emotions, F(8,400) = 2.51, p = .01, η(2) = .05. Specifically, participants with TBI were responsive to happy but not to negative expression/posture manipulations whereas control participants were responsive to happy, angry, and sad expression/posture manipulations. In conclusion, TBI appears to impair the ability to recognize both the physical configuration of a negative emotion and its associated subjective feeling.

The role of eye movements in decision making and the prospect of exposure effects

The aim of the current study was to follow on from previous findings that eye movements can have a causal influence on preference formation. Shimojo et al. (2003) previously found that faces that were presented for a longer duration in a two alternative forced choice task were more likely to be judged as more attractive. This effect only occurred when an eye movement was made towards the faces (with no effect when faces were centrally presented). The current study replicated Shimojo et al.'s (2003) design, whilst controlling for potential inter-stimuli interference in central presentations. As per previous findings, when eye movements were made towards the stimuli, faces that were presented for longer durations were preferred. However, faces that were centrally presented (thus not requiring an eye movement) were also preferred in the current study. The presence of an exposure duration effect for centrally presented faces casts doubt on the necessity of the eye movement in this decision making process and has implications for decision theories that place an emphasis on the role of eye movements in decision making.

Inferring attitudes from mindwandering

Self-perception theory posits that people understand their own attitudes and preferences much as they understand others', by interpreting the meaning of their behavior in light of the context in which it occurs. Four studies tested whether people also rely on unobservable "behavior," their mindwandering, when making such inferences. It is proposed here that people rely on the content of their mindwandering to decide whether it reflects boredom with an ongoing task or a reverie's irresistible pull. Having the mind wander to positive events, to concurrent as opposed to past activities, and to many events rather than just one tends to be attributed to boredom and therefore leads to perceived dissatisfaction with an ongoing task. Participants appeared to rely spontaneously on the content of their wandering minds as a cue to their attitudes, but not when an alternative cause for their mindwandering was made salient.

Disgust as embodied moral judgment

How, and for whom, does disgust influence moral judgment? In four experiments participants made moral judgments while experiencing extraneous feelings of disgust. Disgust was induced in Experiment 1 by exposure to a bad smell, in Experiment 2 by working in a disgusting room, in Experiment 3 by recalling a physically disgusting experience, and in Experiment 4 through a video induction. In each case, the results showed that disgust can increase the severity of moral judgments relative to controls. Experiment 4 found that disgust had a different effect on moral judgment than did sadness. In addition, Experiments 2-4 showed that the role of disgust in severity of moral judgments depends on participants' sensitivity to their own bodily sensations. Taken together, these data indicate the importance-and specificity-of gut feelings in moral judgments.

Smiling when distressed: when a smile is a frown turned upside down

This research tested self-regulation and self-presentation as psychological mechanisms that motivate smiling when distressed. In Study 1, participants viewed moderately and intensely distressing, amusing, and neutral videos in social or nonsocial conditions. Smiling when distressed was most prevalent in conditions in which participants reported the greatest emotional distress. Specifically, while viewing distressing videos, men reported experiencing greater overall distress and also smiled more than women, especially in social conditions and while viewing intensely (as opposed to moderately) distressing stimuli. In general, smiling was related to more negative affect while viewing distressing videos but to more positive affect after viewing such stimuli. Study 2 explored raters' social perceptions of participants from Study 1, confirming that people judge distressed smilers as less socially appropriate and less likable than nonsmilers. Findings suggest that although distressed smiling serves a probable self-regulatory function, it may also bear some negative social consequences.

FACING FEAR: EXPRESSION OF FEAR FACILITATES PROCESSING OF EMOTIONAL INFORMATION

Evidence shows that manipulating the expressive component of fear can influence the processing of emotional information. Participants unobtrusively produced the expressive behaviors typical of fear, anger or happiness. Participants producing the expression of fear were faster at classifying verbal material with emotional content than participants producing the expressions of happiness or anger. These effects were especially pronounced for participants who were generally sensitive to their own bodily cues, as indicated by their degree of field-dependence measured by the Rod-and-Frame Task (Witkin & Asch, 1948). The results suggest that one way of eliciting the cognitive consequences of fear is by inducing the embodied expressive behavior.