You smile--I smile: emotion expression in social interaction

Two studies were conducted to assess the influence of emotional context and social context, in terms of gender and status, on speaker expressivity and observer mimicry in a dyadic interactive setting. For Study 1, 96 same sex dyads and for Study 2, 72 mixed sex dyads participated in a social sharing paradigm. The results showed that in both same sex and mixed sex dyads women smile more than men and members of both sexes use Duchenne smiles rather than non-Duchenne smiles to signal social intent. In same sex dyads facial expressivity and facial mimicry were determined by both the emotional and the social context of the situation. However, whereas emotional context effects maintained, social context effects were absent in mixed sex dyads. The study is the first to show evidence for facial mimicry in an interactional setting and supports the notion that mimicry is dependent on social context.