The Duchenne Marker is Not a Universal Signal of Smile Authenticity – But it Can Be Learned!
Abstract
The Duchenne marker has been proposed as a universal marker of smile authenticity. However, Elfenbein, Beaupré, Levesque, and Hess (2007) found that, whereas Canadians typically show the Duchenne marker when posing happiness, Gabonese do not. We therefore investigated whether the Duchenne marker is perceived as a marker of smile authenticity by Gabonese and by Mainland Chinese living in Quebec, Canada. The results show that Gabonese do not use the Duchenne marker to assess smile authenticity at all. Mainland Chinese immigrants to Quebec showed sensitivity to the Duchenne marker only when judging smiles by French-Canadian encoders, suggesting learning of the use of this cultural dialect through cultural exposure. In sum, the use of Duchenne marker is not universal, but rather limited to certain cultures.
References
(2002). Neural systems for recognizing emotion. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 12, 169–177.
(1992). Inclusion of other in the self scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596–612.
(2003). In my mind, we all smile: A case of in-group favoritism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 371–377.
(2005). The structure of attitudes toward non-Western immigrant groups: Second-order factor analysis of attitudes among Norwegian Adolescents. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 8, 447–469.
(1986). Unmasking the “Polite Smile”: Situational and personal determinants of managed affect in adult-child interaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 7–16.
(2005). Judgment of authenticity of smiles and detection of facial indexes. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 179–189.
(2007). Differences between children and adults in the recognition of enjoyment smiles. Developmental Psychology, 43, 796–803.
(1862/1990). The mechanism of human facial expression (R. A. Cuthbertson, Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(1990). The duchenne smile: Emotional expression and brain physiology II. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 342–353.
(1982). Felt, false, and miserable smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 6, 238–252.
(1987). Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 712–717.
(1981). The symmetry of emotional and deliberate facial actions. Psychophysiology, 18, 101–106.
(2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 203–235.
(2003). Universals and cultural differences in recognizing emotions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 159–164.
(2007). Toward a dialect theory: Cultural differences in the expression and recognition of posed facial expressions. Emotion, 7, 131–146.
(1993). Not all smiles are created equal: The differences between enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles. Special issue: Current issues in psychological humor research. Humor, 6, 9–26.
(2002). Perception of genuine and masking smiles in children and adults: Sensitivity to traces of anger. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 163, 58–71.
(2002). Who to whom and why – cultural differences and similarities in the function of smiles. In , An empirical reflection on the smile (pp. 187–216). Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.
(1989). An analysis of the encoding and decoding of spontaneous and posed smiles: The use of facial electromyography. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 13, 121–137.
(1990). Differentiating emotion elicited and deliberate emotional facial expressions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 369–385.
(2009). Darwin and emotion expression. American Psychologist, 64, 120–128.
(2005). Moving smiles: The role of dynamic components for the perception of the genuineness of the smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 3–24.
(2009). Can Duchenne smiles be feigned? New evidence on felt and false smiles. Emotion, 9, 807–820.
(2007). Temporal aspects of facial displays in person and expression preception: The effects of smile dynamics, head-tilt, gender. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 31, 39–56.
(2011). Beyond smile dynamics: Mimicry and beliefs in judgments of smiles. Emotion, 11, 181–187.
(2003). Nonverbal “accents”: Cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion. Psychological Science, 14, 373–376.
(2010). The Simulation of Smiles (SIMS) Model: Embodied simulation and the meaning of facial expression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 417–433.
(2011). The value of genuine and polite smiles. Emotion, 1, 169–174.
(2001). Ingroup identification as the Inclusion of Ingroup in the Self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 585–600.
(2001). In search of the “Duchenne Smile”: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Psychophysiology, 15, 122–127.
