Sad and Lonely? Sad Mood Suppresses Facial Mimicry

Likowski, Katja U.; Weyers, Peter; Seibt, Beate; Stöhr, Christiane; Pauli, Paul; Mühlberger, Andreas

doi:10.1007/s10919-011-0107-4

Cited by 48 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Accordingly, in the current study, we aim to investigate the modulation of mu suppression in empathy for pain by mood states of the onlookers. Based on prior studies (Kuhbandner et al, ; Likowski et al, ; Thoma et al, ), we predicted that the motoric component of empathy for pain would be suppressed when the onlookers were in negative mood, but were facilitated when the onlookers were in positive mood. Specifically, we anticipated that the pain empathy effects indicated by the difference scores of mu suppression between painful and nonpainful conditions were lowered in negative mood relative to neutral, but were increased in positive relative to neutral mood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Previous studies have demonstrated that motor mimicry is an early automatic element involved in affective empathy (Iacoboni, ; Lamm, Decety, & Singer, ; Singer & Lamm, ; Sonnby‐Borgström, ; Sonnby‐Borgström, Jönsson, & Svensson, ; Varcin, Bailey, & Henry, ). Meanwhile, it has been found that observers' mood states, to a large extent, influence their mimicry (Kuhbandner, Pekrun, & Maier, ; Likowski et al, ). For instance, Kuhbandner et al () observed that the joint Simonlike effect was strongest after positive affect induction and absent after negative affect induction while participants were performing a Simon task together with another person, suggesting that positive affect increases and negative affect decreases the automatic representation of other individuals' actions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The impact of mood on empathy for pain: Evidence from an EEG study

Meng

Hong

et al. 2017

Psychophysiology

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The current work investigated whether the neural correlates of empathy for pain are altered by mood valence of observers. Following mood induction, participants watched pictures representing painful or nonpainful situations. We used EEG to record neural activity and assessed event-related desynchronization at central sites during pain observation. Greater mu desynchronization was observed during painful relative to nonpainful situations in positive and neutral mood but not in negative mood. We also found that the pain empathy effect, indexed by mu suppression differences between painful and nonpainful conditions, was smaller in negative than in neutral and positive mood, while this effect was similar between neutral and positive mood. The current study demonstrates that observers' mood states influence the motoric component of empathy for pain, and specifically the negative mood suppresses the motoric empathic resonance for others' pain.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The impact of mood on empathy for pain: Evidence from an EEG study

Meng

Hong

et al. 2017

Psychophysiology

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“…However, few studies have explored what effect the moods of the observers may have on their empathic responses to others’ pain. Except one study found that participants who underwent a happy mood induction showed marginally higher empathy scores over those underwent the sad mood induction 31 . The lack of statistical significance and limited research technique (only questionnaires were used) suggest that more work is needed to determine what effect the moods have.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Music induced happy mood suppresses the neural responses to other’s pain: Evidences from an ERP study

Cheng

Chen

Luo

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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In the current study, we explored the time course of processing other’s pain under induced happy or sad moods. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when participants observing pictures showing others in painful or non-painful situations. Mood induction procedures were applied to the participants before the picture observation task. Happy and sad moods were induced by listening to about 10 minutes of music excerpts selected from the Chinese Affective Music System (CAMS). The ERP results revealed that the induced mood can influence the early automatic components N1, P2, and N2 but not the later top-down controlled components P3 and LPP. The difference of amplitudes elicited by painful and non-painful stimuli was significantly different only in a sad mood but not in a happy mood, which indicates that comparing to a sad mood, the participants’ ability to discriminate the painful stimuli from the non-painful stimuli was weakened in a happy mood. However, this reduction of sensitivity to other’s pain in a happy mood does not necessarily reduce the tendency of prosocial behaviors. These findings offer psychophysiological evidences that people’s moods can influence their empathic response towards other’s pain.

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“…These findings suggest that high power people might engage the mirroring system to a higher degree than low power people when reading others' minds and this might explain their high accuracy on facial expression recognition tests (Schmid Mast et al, 2009, Study 3). In addition, one could argue that low power people mimic less because they might have more negative mood or attitudes (e.g., toward superiors) and this is known to reduce the mimicry response (Likowski et al, 2011). Again, further experimental research is necessary in order to test the effects of power on mirroring.…”

Section: How Power May Influence Mirroringmentioning

confidence: 99%

How interpersonal power affects empathic accuracy: differential roles of mentalizing vs. mirroring?

Bombari¹,

Mast²,

Brosch³

et al. 2013

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Empathic accuracy (EA)—the correct assessment of the affective states and thoughts of a social partner—affects social behavior and the outcome of interpersonal interactions. Growing evidence has shown that interpersonal power of a perceiver affects EA when assessing a target. This picture, however, is not obvious; there is evidence supporting both the idea that power can improve EA or impair it. Moreover, the mechanisms through which high power individuals are more (or less) accurate at reading others' minds are unknown. The present article provides a new perspective on the power-EA link by investigating how two core abilities involved in EA, mentalizing and mirroring, can explain when and how power is related to EA. The inclusion of findings from neuroimaging studies on mentalizing and mirroring adds a cognitive neuroscience perspective to the power-EA research that has traditionally been conducted in a social psychological framework. The extent to which a given EA-test requires mentalizing or mirroring and the way power affects both of them could explain the contrasting findings. In addition, the analysis of the neural substrates of mentalizing and mirroring may provide new insight into the relationship between power and EA.

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Sad and Lonely? Sad Mood Suppresses Facial Mimicry

Cited by 48 publications

References 48 publications

The impact of mood on empathy for pain: Evidence from an EEG study

The impact of mood on empathy for pain: Evidence from an EEG study

Music induced happy mood suppresses the neural responses to other’s pain: Evidences from an ERP study

How interpersonal power affects empathic accuracy: differential roles of mentalizing vs. mirroring?

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