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A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the Many Smiles Collaboration

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 1731–1742 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Following theories of emotional embodiment, the facial feedback hypothesis suggests that individuals’ subjective experiences of emotion are influenced by their facial expressions. However, evidence for this hypothesis has been mixed. We thus formed a global adversarial collaboration and carried out a preregistered, multicentre study designed to specify and test the conditions that should most reliably produce facial feedback effects. Data from n = 3,878 participants spanning 19 countries indicated that a facial mimicry and voluntary facial action task could both amplify and initiate feelings of happiness. However, evidence of facial feedback effects was less conclusive when facial feedback was manipulated unobtrusively via a pen-in-mouth task.

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Fig. 1: Country-specific sample sizes.
Fig. 2: Effects of facial expression poses and filler tasks on self-reported happiness in each study condition.
Fig. 3: Potential moderators of facial feedback effects.

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Data availability

The full data are publicly available at https://osf.io/ac3t2/. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The full analysis code is publicly available at https://osf.io/ac3t2/.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by B. Stastny, who generously donated funds for this research in memory of his father, Bill Stastny (J.T.L.). The work was also supported by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant no. 2019/35/B/HS6/00528; K.B.), JSPS KAKENHI (grant nos 16H03079, 17H00875, 18K12015, 20H04581 and 21H03784; Y.Y.), the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq; R.M.K.F.), the Polish National Science Center (M.P.), the DFG Beethoven grant no. 2016/23/G/HS6/01775 (M.P.), the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (grant no. R010138018; N.A.C.), the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (grant no. PGC2018-098558-B-I00; J.A.H.), the Comunidad de Madrid (grant no. H2019/HUM-5705; J.A.H.), Teesside University (N.B.) and the Occidental College Academic Student Project Award (S.L.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. We also thank C. Scavo and A. Bidani for help with translating the study materials, L. Pullano and R. Giorgini for help with coding, and E. Tolomeo and L. Pane for help with data collection.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Nicholas A. Coles

  2. Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    David S. March

  3. Center for Change and Complexity in Learning, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Jeff T. Larsen & Lowell Gaertner

  5. Department of Psychology, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Abakaliki, Nigeria

    Nwadiogo C. Arinze & Izuchukwu L. G. Ndukaihe

  6. School of Behavioural and Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Strathfield, New South Wales, Australia

    Megan L. Willis & Francesco Foroni

  7. Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University, Be’er Sheva, Israel

    Niv Reggev & Aviv Mokady

  8. Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University, Be’er Sheva, Israel

    Niv Reggev

  9. Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, Nairobi, Kenya

    Patrick S. Forscher

  10. Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

    John F. Hunter

  11. CLLE, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Gwenaël Kaminski

  12. Department of Psychology, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey

    Elif Yüvrük & Aycan Kapucu

  13. Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

    Tamás Nagy, Nandor Hajdu & Balazs Aczel

  14. Department of Psychology, Federal University of Sergipe, São Cristóvão, Brazil

    Julian Tejada

  15. Vernacular Languages Department, Federal University of Sergipe, São Cristóvão, Brazil

    Raquel M. K. Freitag

  16. Fundación para el Avance de la Psicología, Bogotá, Colombia

    Danilo Zambrano

  17. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, India

    Bidisha Som

  18. Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

    Krystian Barzykowski, Sylwia Adamus & Katarzyna Filip

  19. Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Yuki Yamada

  20. Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Ayumi Ikeda

  21. School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Daniel L. Eaves

  22. School of Health and Life Sciences, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK

    Daniel L. Eaves

  23. Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Carmel A. Levitan & Sydney Leiweke

  24. Center of Research on Cognition and Behavior, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland

    Michal Parzuchowski

  25. Department of Psychology, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK

    Natalie Butcher

  26. Department of Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Gerit Pfuhl

  27. Department of Psychology, United States International University—Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

    Dana M. Basnight-Brown

  28. Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain

    José A. Hinojosa

  29. Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain

    José A. Hinojosa

  30. Departamento de Psicología Básica 1, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain

    Pedro R. Montoro

  31. Programa de Psicología, Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia

    Lady G. Javela D

  32. LIP/PC2s, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

    Kevin Vezirian & Hans IJzerman

  33. Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France

    Hans IJzerman

  34. University of Antioquia-UDEA, Medellín, Colombia

    Natalia Trujillo

  35. Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Sarah D. Pressman

  36. Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Pascal M. Gygax

  37. Department of Psychology, Üsküdar University, İstanbul, Turkey

    Asil A. Özdoğru

  38. FOM University of Applied Sciences, Essen, Germany

    Susana Ruiz-Fernandez

  39. Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Tübingen, Germany

    Susana Ruiz-Fernandez

  40. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Phoebe C. Ellsworth

  41. Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

    Fritz Strack

  42. Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

    Marco Marozzi

  43. Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, ‘Magna Graecia’ University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy

    Marco Tullio Liuzza

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  1. Nicholas A. Coles
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  2. David S. March
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  4. Jeff T. Larsen
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  5. Nwadiogo C. Arinze
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  6. Izuchukwu L. G. Ndukaihe
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  7. Megan L. Willis
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  8. Francesco Foroni
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  9. Niv Reggev
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  10. Aviv Mokady
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  11. Patrick S. Forscher
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  12. John F. Hunter
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  13. Gwenaël Kaminski
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  14. Elif Yüvrük
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  15. Aycan Kapucu
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  16. Tamás Nagy
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  17. Nandor Hajdu
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  18. Julian Tejada
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  19. Raquel M. K. Freitag
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  20. Danilo Zambrano
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  21. Bidisha Som
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  22. Balazs Aczel
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  23. Krystian Barzykowski
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  24. Sylwia Adamus
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  25. Katarzyna Filip
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  26. Yuki Yamada
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  27. Ayumi Ikeda
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  28. Daniel L. Eaves
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  29. Carmel A. Levitan
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  30. Sydney Leiweke
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  31. Michal Parzuchowski
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  32. Natalie Butcher
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  33. Gerit Pfuhl
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  34. Dana M. Basnight-Brown
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  35. José A. Hinojosa
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Contributions

Conceptualization: N.A.C., D.S.M., F.M.-R., J.T.L., J.F.H., P.M.G., P.C.E., L.G. and F.S. Data curation: N.A.C., B.S., Y.Y. and S.R.-F. Formal analysis: N.A.C., L.G., M.M. and M.T.L. Funding acquisition: N.A.C., Y.Y. and N.B. Investigation: N.A.C., D.S.M., J.T.L., N.C.A., I.L.G.N., M.L.W., F.F., N.R., A.M., J.F.H., G.K., E.Y., A.K., N.H., J.T., R.M.K.F., D.Z., B.A., K.B., S.A., K.F., Y.Y., A.I., D.L.E., C.A.L., S.L., M.P., N.B., G.P., D.M.B.-B., J.A.H., P.R.M., L.G.J.D., K.V., H.IJ., N.T., S.D.P., P.M.G., A.A.Ö., S.R.-F. and M.T.L. Methodology: N.A.C., D.S.M., F.M.-R., P.S.F., J.F.H., G.K., K.B., D.L.E., S.R.-F., P.C.E. and L.G. Project administration: N.A.C., M.L.W., F.F., P.S.F., J.F.H., J.T., K.B., K.F., D.L.E., M.P., H.IJ., S.D.P. and A.A.Ö. Resources: N.A.C., D.S.M., I.L.G.N., E.Y., A.K., T.N., R.M.K.F., B.A., K.B., S.A., M.P., G.P., J.A.H., P.R.M., H.IJ., P.M.G., A.A.Ö. and S.R.-F. Software: N.A.C., J.T. and M.M. Supervision: N.A.C., N.C.A., F.F., N.R., J.F.H., B.A., K.B., C.A.L., N.B., H.IJ. and S.D.P. Validation: N.A.C., P.S.F., N.H., J.T., M.P., N.T., M.M. and M.T.L. Visualization: N.A.C., P.S.F., J.A.H. and L.G. Writing—original draft: N.A.C., D.S.M., A.A.Ö. and L.G. Writing—review and editing: N.A.C., D.S.M., F.M.-R., J.T.L., N.C.A., I.L.G.N., M.L.W., F.F., N.R., A.M., P.S.F., J.F.H., G.K., T.N., N.H., D.Z., B.A., K.B., Y.Y., D.L.E., N.B., G.P., D.M.B.-B., J.A.H., P.R.M., L.G.J.D., H.IJ., N.T., S.D.P., P.M.G., A.A.Ö., S.R.-F., P.C.E., L.G., F.S., M.M. and M.T.L.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicholas A. Coles.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Human Behaviour thanks David Mellor, Rainer Reisenzein, Jared McGinley and Quentin Gronau for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3, results from pilot studies 1–3, and results and discussion from the main study.

Reporting Summary

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Data on country-specific sample sizes.

Source Data Fig. 2

Participant-level data for the primary analyses.

Source Data Fig. 3

Participant-level data for the secondary moderator analyses.

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Coles, N.A., March, D.S., Marmolejo-Ramos, F. et al. A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the Many Smiles Collaboration. Nat Hum Behav 6, 1731–1742 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01458-9

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