brainMotivational Power of the Happy FacesciencesArticleThe Motivational Power of the Happy FaceJana Nikitin 1,* and Alexandra M. Freund 21 Faculty of Psychology, Research Group Personality and Developmental Psychology, University of Basel,4055 Basel, Switzerland2 Department of Psychology, University Research Priority Program Dynamics of Healthy Aging,University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland; freund@psychologie.uzh.ch* Correspondence: jana.nikitin@unibas.ch; Tel.: +41-(0)61-207-0683Received: 28 … Continue reading “Motivational Power of the Happy Face | My Assignment Tutor”
brainMotivational Power of the Happy FacesciencesArticleThe Motivational Power of the Happy FaceJana Nikitin 1,* and Alexandra M. Freund 21 Faculty of Psychology, Research Group Personality and Developmental Psychology, University of Basel,4055 Basel, Switzerland2 Department of Psychology, University Research Priority Program Dynamics of Healthy Aging,University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland; freund@psychologie.uzh.ch* Correspondence: jana.nikitin@unibas.ch; Tel.: +41-(0)61-207-0683Received: 28 November 2018; Accepted: 31 December 2018; Published: 7 January 2019Abstract: People who are cheerful have better social relationships. This might be the case becausehappy faces communicate an invitation to interact. Thus, happy faces might have a strongmotivational effect on others. We tested this hypothesis in a set of four studies. Study 1 (N = 94)showed that approach reactions to happy faces are faster than other reactions to happy or angryfaces. Study 2 (N = 99) found the same effect when comparing reactions to happy faces with reactionsto disgusted faces. Supporting the notion that this effect is related to motivation, habitual socialapproach motivation intensified the motivational effect of happy faces (Study 3, N = 82). Finally,Study 4 (N = 40) showed that the reaction-time asymmetry does not hold for categorization taskswithout approach and avoidance movements. These studies demonstrate that happy faces have astrong motivational power. They seem to activate approach reactions more strongly than angry ordisgusted faces activate avoidance reactions.Keywords: emotional faces; approach; avoidance; motivation; reaction times1. IntroductionPeople who smile are rated more favorably by others and interactions with them are expectedto be rewarding [1]. This might be one reason why cheerful people are happier [1], have a lowerdivorce rate [2], and live longer [3] than less cheerful people. Starting with the functional view ofemotions by Darwin [4], it has long been recognized that emotions have an interpersonal function.People who smile express positive social intentions that are essential for the creation and maintenanceof social bonds [5]. Smiling face and its frequent acoustic concomitant, laughter, are associated withbonding, agreement, and affection (for a summary, see Reference [6]). A happy face signals positiveemotions, as well as attachment availability, care, support, and credibility [7–9]. Recently, Tamir andHughes [10] argued that positive social signals such as smiling faces not only serve ultimate goals(e.g., forming strong bonds) but they are also rewarding in and off themselves. According to Tamir andHughes, this proximal value of positive social signals forms the foundation on which the complexitiesof human sociality are built. In line with this hypothesis, Yang and Urminsky [11] demonstrated thatanticipated positive affective reactions of social partners powerfully shape peoples’ behavior. In otherwords, people are highly motivated to evoke smile and happiness in others. In Yang and Urminsky’sstudies, participants decided which gift they gave to a person. Participants often chose to forgosatisfaction-maximizing gifts in favor of gifts that maximized anticipated positive emotional reactionsin the perceiver. These results confirmed the author’s “smile-seeking” hypothesis that peoples’ desireto induce, approach, and enjoy others’ spontaneous displays of affective reactions is innately valuableand rewarding, and consequently, a powerful motivator in social contexts (see also References [12–15]).Similar conclusions come from neuropsychological research that link the reward areas of the basalganglia with the perception of smiling faces [16]. The reward circuitry in the basal ganglia, in turn,Brain Sci. 2019, 9, 6; doi:10.3390/brainsci9010006 www.mdpi.com/journal/brainsciBrain Sci. 2019, 9, 6 2 of 18is associated with what Davidson [17] termed pre-goal attainment positive affect. In Davidson’s view,activation in subcortical reward centers supports an organism’s approach toward an appetitive goal.It seems that the activation of the reward system by a perceived smile serves appetitive behavior. Peoplewho smile show signals of prosocial intentions [18]. In most—if not all—cases, approaching positivesocial stimuli is adaptive [19]. Given that approaching a happy person implies approaching safety andthe possibility for affiliation, others might follow this invitation. In other words, a smiling face shouldmotivate others to approach [20–22]. In fact, previous studies have demonstrated that people showapproach behavioral tendencies towards smiling faces [20,21,23–25]. Although it has been arguedrepeatedly that these approach tendencies to happy faces have motivational underpinnings [10,15],to our knowledge the motivation hypothesis has not been directly tested. The present research aims atproviding support for the motivation hypothesis by comparing the motivational effect of happy facesto facial expressions of negative emotions (anger, disgust). We assumed that approach behavior tohappy faces is the default reaction.Approaching positive social stimuli such as happy faces should be generally adaptive. In contrast,it is less clear what the most adaptive reaction to negative social stimuli might be. For example, facesexpressing anger communicate aggressive tendencies, and thus, possible threat [26,27]. In some casesof encountering anger, approach behavior might be most appropriate (e.g., when fighting againstan aggressor is important for one’s social standing), but in other cases avoidance behavior mightbe more adaptive (e.g., when a fight might escalate aggression and likely leads to social or physicallosses). Thus, angry facial expressions might not automatically elicit approach or avoidance behavior.Mineka [28] suggested that behavioral responses to (social) threat are slowed down in order to avoiderroneous decisions that could have detrimental consequences for the individual. Given the difficultiesin deciding how to react best when confronted with anger, slowing down the reaction might give theperson time to select the best solution in a given situation. In other words, there might be no cleardefault reaction to the display of anger. Indirect support for this assumption comes from a studyby Roelofs, Hagenaars, and Stins [29]. Using a stabilometric force platform assessing the amount ofspontaneous body sway, Roelofs and colleagues found reduced behavioral reaction when participantsviewed angry compared to neutral and happy faces (for similar results, see Reference [25]). In addition,a recent meta-analysis [23] of 29 studies with 81 effects sizes found small- to medium-sized effects forthe compatibility of different positive and negative stimuli (faces, pictures, and words) in the approachand avoidance tendencies, respectively [30]. Interestingly, however, there was a tendency of facialexpressions to be less effective in initiating approach or avoidance behavior than all other stimuli.Particularly with respect to reactions to negative facial expressions such as anger, the results are mixed.Although there is good evidence that angry faces can be detected very quickly [31], they seem to beambiguous with regard to the action tendencies they evoke. Some studies found congruent effects ofangry faces and avoidance (compared to approach) behaviors [20,22,32], but other studies failed todetect any behavioral tendencies in reaction to angry faces [21,25,30,33,34].In summary, we hypothesize that approach of happy faces is the default reaction, whereasthere is no such default reaction to negative facial expressions. We test this hypothesis using avery basic motivated behavioral tendency to approach or avoid [35], measuring reaction times of armmovements [30]. The principle of this reaction-time task is that participants’ response speed to approachor avoid is affected by the compatibility between the response and the valence of the stimuli [36].We start by testing the robustness of approach reactions to happy faces compared to reactions tonegative facial expressions in Studies 1 and 2. We compare reactions towards happy faces with reactionsto faces expressing anger (Study 1) and disgust (Study 2). We expect that participants react fasterwith approach than avoidance to happy faces and that the speed of approach and avoidance reactionsto negative facial expressions does not significantly differ. Studies 3 and 4 were designed to test themotivational hypothesis more directly. Concretely, we test whether habitual approach motivationaccelerates approach reactions to happy faces (Study 3) and we rule out that the reaction-time effectsof happy faces are just categorization effects (Study 4).Brain Sci. 2019, 9, 6 3 of 182. Study 1Study 1 tested the hypothesis that approach reactions to happy faces are faster than avoidancereactions to happy faces and that there is no clear reaction tendency to angry faces. To test thishypothesis, we used a distance-regulation paradigm. In this paradigm, approach and avoidancemovements are associated with moving a manikin representing the self towards or away fromemotional faces (for a similar approach, see Reference [37]). We used the manikin task insteadof using arm flexion/arm extension as often used in the approach-avoidance task (AAT [30,38])because the manikin approach is less ambiguous with respect to the reference point than thearm-flexion/arm-extension approach [32,39]. Arm flexion can be a movement towards oneself(indicating approach behavior) but also away from a stimulus (indicating avoidance behavior).Similarly, arm extension can be a movement away from oneself but also towards a stimulus. In themanikin task, the movements are unambiguously associated to approach and avoidance, respectively.In addition, the manikin task is more sensitive to valence of a stimulus (such as happy and angry faces)than the arm-flexion/arm-extension task [40].2.1. MethodThis research was conducted with the ethical guidelines of the University of Zurich; all studieswere considered exempt from formal ethical review.2.1.1. ParticipantsStudents of the University of Zurich were recruited within a larger project investigating socialbehavior in a transition from parental home to a shared apartment (see References [41–43]). Participantsfirst completed an online questionnaire at home assessing sociodemographic variables and variablesnot relevant for the present research. Later, participants were invited to the lab for the reaction-timepart of the study. They were informed that they would react to pictures of faces of different facialexpressions. The sample consisted of 94 participants (82% female, age M = 23.93, SD = 4.33 years;socio-demographic data of 20 participants could not be assigned because of a wrong personalcode, that means these participants created a different personal code for the online questionnaireassessing the sociodemographic information and for the reaction-time part of the study, so thattheir sociodemographic information could not be assigned to their reaction-time data (Excludingthese participants from the main analysis did not change the results: we found a main effect offacial expression (F(1, 72) = 53.20, p 0.05). Thus, the differences between happy and angry/disgustedfaces in Studies 1, 2, and 3 cannot be interpreted as a result of simple categorization.)6. General DiscussionSince Harlow’s [58] classic studies and the advent of attachment theory [59,60], belongingness hasbeen acknowledged as one of the most fundamental human motives [61]. The present studies appliedthis motivational hypothesis to study the reactions to emotional faces. Study 1 and 2 supported therobustness of approach reactions to happy faces. Approach reactions to happy faces were faster thanany other reaction to happy, angry, or disgusted faces. Study 3 demonstrated that habitual socialapproach motivation intensifies the motivational power of happy faces. Importantly, results of Study4 indicate that this effect might be specific to approach reactions. Simple categorization withoutapproach did not reveal the happy-face advantage in reaction times, supporting the notion that theeffect is driven by motivational factors. In the following, we discuss the results of the present studiesand their theoretical and practical implications.6.1. Happy FacesIn summary, people react very fast to happy faces with approach behavior. This is not onlythe result of the present studies but is supported without exception by previous research thatinvestigated approach and avoidance reactions to happy faces [23]. This might be the case becauseapproaching a happy person might often have benefits and rarely costs. Humans rely on otherpeople, and therefore, have to approach them. The high survival value of other people is arguablythe reason why belongingness is one of the most fundamental human needs and why we strive forpositive social encounters most of the time [61]. A smile signals positive social intentions [5] andthe possibility to satisfy our desire for belongingness. This might be the reason why a happy facehas a strong motivational power to approach. This conclusion is most strongly supported by Study3 of the present research, that showed a positive association between the strength of habitual socialapproach motivation and speed of approach reactions to happy faces, and Study 4, that showed nosuch differences in a categorization task.Further indirect support for this motivational interpretation comes from studies investigatingpatients with depression. For example, Derntl and colleagues [33] found less amygdala activation(indicating reduced reactivity in response to positive emotional stimuli; [62]) in patients withmajor depression compared to healthy controls during approach movements toward happy faces.Additionally, more pronounced depressive symptoms in the patient group were accompanied bylower levels of amygdala activation. As depressive symptoms are negatively linked to appetitivemotivation [63], these results suggest that people with low levels of appetitive motivation are lesssensitive to positive social signs (for similar results, see Reference [24]). Moreover, research on socialanxiety shows that highly socially anxious persons show avoidance tendencies to smiling faces [30].This might be the case because socially anxious persons do not expect benevolent intentions of theirinteraction partners [64], and thus avoid social interaction partners even when the interaction partnersexpress positive emotions [65].These findings do not only support the motivational explanation of approach of happy faces,they also demonstrate the boundaries of the fundamentality of these reactions. Although we assumethat most people search positive social interactions most of the time, there are also exceptions. Theseexceptions are explained either by individual differences such as low appetitive motivation associatedwith depressive symptoms [24,33] or possibly negative evaluation of happy faces associated withsocial anxiety [30,65]. However, there are also situational factors that reduce approach tendenciesto happy faces, particularly when the smiling face signals dominance, Schadenfreude, or shameand embarrassment [14,66,67]. This might be the case in situations that are hostile or competitive.In support of this hypothesis, Paulus and Wentura [22] found that smile in members of an outgroup(e.g., Middle-Eastern men for White-Caucasian participants) are associated with faster avoidanceBrain Sci. 2019, 9, 6 12 of 18than approach reactions. The authors concluded that a smile of an outgroup member is evaluatedmore probably as dominance, arrogance or Schadenfreude rather than friendliness and cooperation,and thus lead to avoidance reactions (for similar results, see Reference [68]). Future research shouldinvestigate more systematically, in which situations and in whom smiling faces do (not) lead to strongapproach tendencies.6.2. Negative Facial ExpressionsAn interaction with an angry person or a person expressing disgust is ambivalent. If someonesignalizes anger directed to us, we might experience a conflict between the need to belong and the wishto avoid a negative social encounter. This might slow down our reactions. The same might be true fordisgusted faces. Accordingly, studies investigating approach and avoidance tendencies towards angry(and disgusted) faces provide mixed results [21,25,30,33,34]. Even in studies that find faster avoidancethan approach responses to angry faces (e.g., [20]), responses to anger expressions are typically slowerthan responses to other emotional expressions (see also [21]). The present studies support previousfindings indicating that there is no default behavioral reaction to negative facial expressions such asanger or disgust. In contrast to negative words [37,69], negative attitude objects [35], negative auditorystimuli [70], negative affective pictures [71], or fear-related animals such as spiders [38], negative facialexpressions do not seem to elicit a default avoidance reaction. Instead, negative facial expressions,and particularly angry facial expressions, seem to lead to slower reactions, irrespective of approach oravoidance [20,21].This might be the case because angry facial expressions activate neural circuits involved inbehavioral suppression [72], and thus lead to behavioral inhibition in the perceiver [25,29]. Suchinhibition might reflect an orienting response during which we prepare an appropriate reaction.As Phaf and colleagues [23] put it, angry faces seem to require further interpretation to elicit eitherapproach, when evoking anger in the perceiver (e.g., [34]), or avoidance, when evoking fear (e.g., [32].Similarly, Seidel and colleagues [21] argued that disgust in facial expression can signal differentmessages that request either approach (e.g., food-offence disgust) or avoidance (e.g., individual-relateddisgust) [73]. As Winkielman and colleagues [15] discussed, the social environment is complex, and itdemands context-appropriate responses. It is an interesting direction for future research to modulatecontext variables to test directly, which variables elicit approach and which avoidance behavior as areaction to negative facial expressions [22].6.3. Limitations and Future DirectionsOne limitation of the present studies is the artificial setting and task. Looking at still faces at acomputer screen and reacting to them using a joystick bears no resemblance to real-life situationsand carries no real-life relevance. A natural setting would provide more contextual information suchas verbal and non-verbal behavior, the type of relationship, or whether the environment is safe ornot. Such contextual information might be particularly helpful for deciding how to react when beingconfronted with a negative facial expression. Therefore, with more contextual information, the reactionto negative facial expressions might come as readily as the reaction to a happy face. On the other side,the context-free setting emphasizes the motivational power of happy faces. Even when there is nocontextual information, people’s approach reactions to happy faces are faster than any other reactionto happy, angry, or disgusted faces.Another critical point of our studies is that we cannot disentangle the effect of valence from theeffect of arousal. Happy faces are lower in arousal than angry or disgusted faces (e.g., 77). Thus, peoplemight react slower to angry and disgusted faces than to happy faces because angry and disgustedfaces are more arousing. Contradicting this assumption, Robinson and colleagues [74] found a fasterprocessing of highly arousing negative stimuli compared to negative stimuli low in arousal. Similarly,Lang [75] provided evidence that negative and highly arousing stimuli elicit behavioral responseswith a larger amplitude than would be expected only on the basis of their valence. Thus, if arousalBrain Sci. 2019, 9, 6 13 of 18had any effect on the current findings, it should lead to faster reactions to angry or disgusted facesthan to happy faces. In contrast, we find faster reactions to happy faces than to negative emotionalexpressions, speaking for the effect of valence rather than the effect of arousal.Further, the present studies are based on samples with considerably more females than males,which can be partly explained by the fact that the studies were run in the labs of the departmentof psychology and many of the participants were psychology students who are, in majority, female.It is not clear whether the present findings can be generalized to other populations. Note, that wetested possible moderation effects of gender on the present findings and found no evidence for suchmoderation effects. We caution, however, that the male samples were too small to draw reliableconclusions from these additional analyses. In fact, there is some evidence for gender differencesin social motivation: for example, women rate themselves as higher in warmth and empathy thanmen [76] and they are more other-oriented and more cautious than men [77]. This could explainsome findings of the present research (e.g., faster approach reactions to happy faces and slowerreactions to negative facial expressions). Although gender differences both in socially relevant (such asempathy; [78]) as well as general psychological factors [79] are relatively small, the present researchshould be nevertheless replicated in studies with more balanced gender distributions.In the present studies, we did not measure the ambiguity of the reactions to angry faces directlybut tested a possible consequence of this ambiguity, namely longer reaction times to angry as comparedto happy faces. Further studies need to test the link between the difficulty to choose the appropriatereaction facing an angry person and reaction times directly. One possibility is to use the “mousetracking” procedure that allows investigating the process of decision-making [80].Finally, some studies using the categorization task found different results than Study 4 of thepresent research [57,81]. These studies found faster categorization of happy faces than of negativefacial expressions. These results were explained by (1) a general bias of expecting a higher base rate ofpositive over negative events, including facial expressions [57]; (2) a match between one’s (positive)mood [82] and the encountering of a (positive) facial expression in others; and (3) an asymmetrybetween the number of positive (one: smiling face) and negative facial expressions of basic emotions(four: anger, sadness, disgust, fear; [57]). There are differences in the method of previous categorizationstudies and of the current Study 4 that might account for the different findings. First, we used a highnumber of models for the facial expressions so that each model was presented only two (Studies 3and 4: happy and angry facial expression) or four times (Studies 1 and 2: happy and angry/disgustedfacial expression in the approach and the avoidance condition). In contrast, previous categorizationstudies used a small number of models or even schematic facial expressions that were presented manytimes [57,81]. This could have led to learning effects that might be stronger with respect to happythan to negative facial expressions. In addition, previous categorization studies did not compare thefindings from the categorization task with possible results of an approach-avoidance task. Thus, theycannot rule out additional acceleration of responses to happy faces when happy faces are associatedwith approach reactions. Future research is needed to test these possible differences directly.7. ConclusionsThe present research investigated how basic behavioral reactions might help us to understand thefunctionality of social behavior. Happy faces signal attachment availability and people react readily tothis signal. By their motivational power, happy faces help to satisfy the need to belong of both thesmiling person and the perceiver. Thus, an intensive smile seems to have an important interpersonalfunction. The present findings lead to several important conclusions within this framework.First, they show that the reaction-time advantage to happy compared to negative facial expressionsis driven by motivational factors. Although it has been repeatedly found that people react fasterto happy faces than to negative facial expressions, we still know very little about why this isthe case. The present studies illustrate the importance of motivational factors in the happy-facebehavioral advantage.Brain Sci. 2019, 9, 6 14 of 18Second, the present studies indicate that there is no default behavioral reaction to negativefacial expressions such as anger or disgust. In contrast to negative words [37,69], negative attitudeobjects [35], negative auditory stimuli [70], negative affective pictures [71], or fear-related animals suchas spiders [38], negative facial expressions do not seem to elicit a default avoidance reaction (see alsoReference [30]). Instead, negative facial expressions seem to lead to slower reactions, irrespective ofapproach or avoidance. This might be the case because negative facial expressions are associatedwith behavioral inhibition [29]. Such inhibition might reflect an orienting response during which weprepare an appropriate reaction.Third, the present research provides support for the notion that intervention studies thatare based on the approach-avoidance task might train motivation (and not simply associationsbetween stimuli and reactions). Such interventions use for example the adoption of approach-typepostures [83], execution of approach-type movements towards rewarding choices [84] or positivefacial expressions [85], and avoidance-type movements that lead to more controlled (less impulsive)information processing [86]. One of these studies has also demonstrated that socially anxiousparticipants who were trained to approach smiling faces displayed more social approach behaviorsduring a subsequent social interaction compared to participants in the control group [87]. The presentresearch provides support for the motivational explanation of these trainings, and thus contributes tobetter understanding of the mechanisms that underlie such training effects.Author Contributions: The studies were conceptualized by both authors and conducted by J.N. J.N. analyzed thedata. Both authors were involved in writing.Funding: This research was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, grant number 100014_126868/1and the Suzanne and Hans Biäsch Foundation for Applied Psychology, grant number 2012/12.Acknowledgments: We wish to thank Angela Ruckstuhl, Julia Becker, Anna Gunsch, and Anaïs Hofmann fortheir help with data collection. Moreover, we appreciate the time and effort the study participants invested inthis research.Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. 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