Early Adolescents’ Mimicry and Counter-Mimicry of Peers’ Angry and Happy Faces: Associations with Belongingness Needs

• In Event: 1-171 - Feeling, Flexibly: Flexibility in Child and Adolescent Emotion Regulation and Its Links with Psychosocial Functioning

Integrative Statement

Early adolescence is marked by forming new friendships, deepening intimacy with peers, and trying to avoid social exclusion (Kirke, 2009; Pedersen et al., 2007). Early adolescents also undergo neurological changes that interfere with emotion regulation (Zimmermann & Iwanski, 2014). Ability to regulate affective states predicts peer acceptance (Perry-Parrish et al., 2013). Youths must learn to actively regulate emotional behaviors in service of interpersonal goals, particularly when these behaviors signal their social intentions.

Behavioral mimicry is a “social glue” that fosters interpersonal closeness; both belongingness needs and social rejection experiences promote mimicry of others’ “neutral” behaviors, such as foot-shaking (Lakin et al., 2003). Mimicking emotional expressions is more complex, however: Mimicking someone’s friendly smile can promote social bonding, but mimicking someone’s angry frown, or responding to someone’s smile with an angry glance (“counter-mimicry”), might escalate conflicts and prevent affiliation. Developing mature emotion regulation thus necessitates that youths flexibly respond to others’ feelings in ways that complement their social goals (Lemerise & Harper, 2010). In this study, we examined early-adolescents’ overt mimicry and counter-mimicry of peers’ angry and happy faces. We investigated whether social exclusion and/or dispositional belongingness needs would prompt stronger affiliative behavior (e.g., stronger smiling and weaker frowning responses) across tasks and emotions.

Participants were 82 (46.3% Female) Chinese 12-15 year-olds (M=13.06, SD=1.24). Participants experienced either inclusion (n=37) or exclusion (n=45) in a Cyberball game (Williams & Jarvis, 2006) playing with two (computer-simulated) same-aged peers. Afterward, participants received randomized-blocked instructions to mimic (e.g., frown at angry faces) or counter-mimic (e.g., frown at happy faces; see Figure 1) these peers’ emotional expressions. Happy and angry images were presented in random order (10 trials each) within each block. Facial electromyography (fEMG) recorded frowning (corrugator) and smiling (zygomaticus). Baseline-corrected responses were aggregated over 1s post-stimulus.

Manipulation checks indicated that Cyberball had the intended effects upon feelings of exclusion. Separately for frowning and smiling responses, we conducted 2(Inclusion/Exclusion) x 2(Task: Mimicry/Counter-Mimicry) x 2(Emotion: Angry/Happy) mixed ANCOVAs, with Belongingness Needs as a covariate. No effects involving Exclusion manipulation were significant. However, for both frowning and smiling, a three-way Task x Emotion x Belongingness Needs interaction was significant [Fs(1,79)≥4.79, ps≤.033, ƞp2=.105]. Simple slopes tests at ±1SD revealed that participants’ Belongingness Needs were negatively correlated with anger mimicry (B=-.001, t=-2.935, p=.004) and happiness counter-mimicry (B=-.001, t=-2.670, p=.009), and also positively correlated with happiness mimicry (B=.001, t=2.058, p=.043), see Figure 2a-b.

This study extends prior research on children’s active emotion regulation efforts, by considering overt behavior instead of internal states, and the social messages that emotional expressions convey (Fischer & Manstead, 2008). Youths with stronger dispositional belongingness needs showed weaker antagonistic (i.e., frowning) responses toward both angry and happy peers, as well as stronger affiliative (i.e., smiling) responses toward happy peers. Experiences of both exclusion and inclusion might increase subsequent motivations to affiliate with peers, leading to nonsignificant effects for the Cyberball manipulation. However, the results generally suggest that youths flexibly adjust their responses to others’ emotional expressions in ways that are compatible with their dispositional belongingness needs.

Authors

• Skyler Hawk, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Yingqian Wang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  Non-Presenting Author

• Wenqing Zong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  Non-Presenting Author