The facial foundations of social decay
How do antagonistic facial displays shape social interactions?
The “Facial Foundations of Social Decay” project aims at investigating the occurrence and subsequent effects of antagonistic facial displays in social conflicts. Shedding light on the question: if and how we regulate our emotional expressions in interactions classified by empathic failure and goals opposed to the interaction partner, to gain a deeper understanding of the disintegration of social values such as trust and cooperation.
Empathy and emotion sharing are uniquely impaired during social conflicts. One interesting aspect of empathic failure is the presence of antagonistic emotional displays. During the project we want to investigate (a) the neural basis of facial mimicry and antagonistic facial responses via combined electroencephalography (EEG) and facial electromyography (fEMG), for gaining a better understanding of the time course and relation these behaviors have to one another; (b) changes in the social perception of interaction partners due to the occurrence of antagonistic facial expressions during social conflict (changes in trust behavior, liking and mental representation), (c) the integration of the individual usage of contrasting antagonistic facial displays into existing theories of emotion regulation focusing on the up- and downregulation of emotional experiences to foster goal attainment during social conflict, measured via EMG and behavioral measurements.
Methods
EMG, EEG
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