title: Facial mimicry in its social setting.
abstract: In interpersonal encounters, individuals often exhibit changes in their own facial expressions in response to emotional expressions of another person. Such changes are often called facial mimicry. While this tendency first appeared to be an automatic tendency of the perceiver to show the same emotional expression as the sender, evidence is now accumulating that situation, person, and relationship jointly determine whether and for which emotions such congruent facial behavior is shown. We review the evidence regarding the moderating influence of such factors on facial mimicry with a focus on understanding the meaning of facial responses to emotional expressions in a particular constellation. From this, we derive recommendations for a research agenda with a stronger focus on the most common forms of encounters, actual interactions with known others, and on assessing potential mediators of facial mimicry. We conclude that facial mimicry is modulated by many factors: attention deployment and sensitivity, detection of valence, emotional feelings, and social motivations. We posit that these are the more proximal causes of changes in facial mimicry due to changes in its social setting.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Oslo Oslo, Norway ; Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal.
authors: Beate
authors: B
authors: Seibt
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg Würzburg, Germany ; Department of Psychology, University of Regensburg Regensburg, Germany.
authors: Andreas
authors: A
authors: Mühlberger
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg Würzburg, Germany.
authors: Katja U
authors: KU
authors: Likowski
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg Würzburg, Germany.
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Weyers
keywords: EMG; competition; cooperation; facial expression; mimicry; mood