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Emotional Empathy and Facial Feedback

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Abstract

We studied if emotional empathy is related to sensitivity to facial feedback. The participants, 112 students, rated themselves on the questionnaire measure of emotional empathy (QMEE) and were divided into one high and one low empathic group. Facial expressions were manipulated to produce a happy or a sulky expression. During the manipulation, participants rated humorous films with respect to funniness. These ratings were the dependent variable. No main effect of facial expression was found. However, a significant interaction between empathy and condition indicated that the high as compared to the low empathic group rated the films as being funnier in a happy condition and a tendency to be less funny in a sulky condition. On the basis of the present results we suggest emotional empathy to be one important and previously ignored factor to explain individual differences in effects of facial feedback.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants to Ulf Dimberg from The Swedish Research Council and The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. We thank Sven Söderkvist for his constructive contribution in the development of the specific method used in this study.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 1225, 75142, Uppsala, Sweden

    Per Andréasson & Ulf Dimberg

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  1. Per Andréasson
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  2. Ulf Dimberg
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Correspondence to Per Andréasson.

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Andréasson, P., Dimberg, U. Emotional Empathy and Facial Feedback. J Nonverbal Behav 32, 215–224 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-008-0052-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-008-0052-z

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