Moderating Self-Esteem: How Facial Expression Begets Happiness

Tiffany Casaletto

The World Always looks Brighter from Behind A Smile

Facial Expression

There were 2 facial expressions used:

  • The Duchenne Smile
  • Neutral, Straight-faced

These facial expressions was used to convey a non-emotion (Neutral) and Happiness.

This called the Imaging task.

Participants are to look at an image of photo for 7 seconds.

Self-Esteem

Confidence in ones’s worth or abilities; Can be High or Low

Self-esteem was used as a moderator for the facial expressions: The Duchenne and Neutral facial expressions. Participants were told that the person in the photo had high or low self-esteem as manipulation.

There are four conditions:

  • Duchenne with high self-esteem
  • Neutral with high self-esteem
  • Duchenne with low self-esteem
  • Neutral with low self-esteem

Happiness

The state of being Happy

Happiness was measured via a questionnaire that was a total of 6 questions:

  • 3 happy related questions:

“I am pleased with the way I am”, “I laugh a lot”, and “I am very happy”

  • 3 unhappy related questions

“ I rarely smile”, “I do not think I look attractive”, and “I am not particularly optimistic about the future”

Hypothesis

Results

Discussion

Limitation

  • Small Sample Size

Strength

  • Lack of previous studies

Implication

  • Grounds for treatment of Mood behaviors and disorders.

Self-Esteem is Complicated

  • Though the results did not support our hypothesis, self-esteem could still be a key moderating factor when it comes to facial expressions.

  • Predisposition to high or low self esteem before exposure to different facial expressions may not be able to influence results to produce the desired outcome therefore not having a significant effect.

  • Self - esteem is complicated, in other worlds “We can’t judge a book by its cover”, but if we “read” and continue to investigate self-esteem then we can figure out ways to boost it or lower in terms mood behaviors or even personality disorders.