Search

This article suggests a theoretically driven explanation for a replication failure of one of the basic findings in psychology: the facial-feedback effect. According to the facial-feedback hypothesis, the facial activity associated with particular emotional expressions can influence people's affective experiences. Recently, a replication attempt of this effect in 17 laboratories around the world failed to find any support for the effect. We hypothesize that the reason for the failure of replication is that the replication protocol deviated from that of the original experiment in a critical factor. In all of the replication studies, participants were alerted that they would be monitored by a video camera, whereas the participants in the original study were not monitored, observed, or recorded. Previous findings indicate that feeling monitored or observed reduces reliance on internal cues in making judgments. Therefore, we hypothesize that recording the participants in the replication experiments reduced their reliance on the facial-feedback. To test the hypothesis, we replicated the facial-feedback experiment in 2 conditions: one with a video-camera and one without it. The results revealed a significant facial-feedback effect in the absence of a camera, which was eliminated in the camera's presence. These findings suggest that minute differences in the experimental protocol might lead to theoretically meaningful changes in the outcomes. In our view, the theoretical and methodological approach advocated by our study changes failed replications from being the "end of the road" regarding entire fields of study into a new road for growth regarding our understanding of human nature. (PsycINFO Database Record

Research demonstrates that facial appearance affects social perceptions. The current research investigates the reverse possibility: Can social perceptions influence facial appearance? We examine a social tag that is associated with us early in life-our given name. The hypothesis is that name stereotypes can be manifested in facial appearance, producing a face-name matching effect, whereby both a social perceiver and a computer are able to accurately match a person's name to his or her face. In 8 studies we demonstrate the existence of this effect, as participants examining an unfamiliar face accurately select the person's true name from a list of several names, significantly above chance level. We replicate the effect in 2 countries and find that it extends beyond the limits of socioeconomic cues. We also find the effect using a computer-based paradigm and 94,000 faces. In our exploration of the underlying mechanism, we show that existing name stereotypes produce the effect, as its occurrence is culture-dependent. A self-fulfilling prophecy seems to be at work, as initial evidence shows that facial appearance regions that are controlled by the individual (e.g., hairstyle) are sufficient to produce the effect, and socially using one's given name is necessary to generate the effect. Together, these studies suggest that facial appearance represents social expectations of how a person with a specific name should look. In this way a social tag may influence one's facial appearance. (PsycINFO Database Record

Past studies of strategic thinking have shown that the encoding of the message information becomes more complex under distrust. Receivers process the information as if they are trying to protect themselves from being misled by testing alternative potential interpretations. The present study investigates the possibility that when people are mistrustful they spontaneously activate associations that are incongruent with the given message. Findings from 3 experiments suggest that, even when the distrust is unrelated in any meaningful way to the message and even when receivers are unable to prepare a strategic response, the cognitive system reacts to distrust by automatically inducing the consideration of incongruent associations—it seems designed to ask, “and what if the information were false?” The theoretical implications of the results for theories of social perception and persuasion are discussed. Deception and its complement, distrust, are among the most perplexing and pervasive challenges of social life. Evolutionary theory assumes they are inherent to living in groups and a key problem of adaptation (Griffin, 1992). The social psychological literature on the “epidemiology” of deception and distrust offers much empirical support at least in respect to prevalence. For example, DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, and Epstein (1996) found that participants in a community survey said they lied in about one of five social interactions, and college students reported doing so in one of three (see also, DePaulo & Kashy, 1998; Feldman, Forrest, & Happ, 2002). Distrust and suspicion seem no less common within and among organizations (Kramer, 1999; Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998); it is well known that consumers often distrust information put out by these organizations, especially when it is about their products (e.g., Dyer & Kuehl, 1978; Tellis, 1997). The view that “politicians pander” is not uncommon (McGraw, Lodge, & Jones, 2002), and even journalists, admitting that business pressures unduly influence what they write, have become concerned that readers are growing to distrust them (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 1999). Hence, it seems reasonable to conclude that in many, if not most, of their dealings with others, people are aware of the possibility of being misled (DePaulo et al., 1996; Schul & Burnstein, 1998). Our research examines how the human cognitive system has adapted to this sort of awareness. Specifically, it explores whether a feeling of