Embodied simulation and the human smile: Linking processing similarities to cultural differences. differences

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CHAPTER 8

Embodied Simulation Embodied Simulation and the Human Smileand the Human Smile

Processing Similarities to Cultural Differences

Paula M. NiedenthalMagdelena Rychlowska

Piotr Szarota

INTRODUCTION

Arguably one of the most important signals in human interaction is the smile. Among its most studied functions in Western cultures is its effi ciency in signal-ing a state of happiness in the person who is smiling (Ekman, 1994). However, although the smile emerges early in life and is widely recognized across cultures as an expression that conveys happiness (Ekman, 1989), it still has the power to confuse and confound—even within Western cultures. Although smiles often communicate that the expresser feels happiness or joy (e.g., Frank & Stennett, 2001), some smiles signal affi liative intent or a responsiveness to group norms; others express more complex interpersonal or status motivations (e.g., Abel, 2002). How do individuals interpret the meaning of a smile?

Theories of embodied emotion have recently inspired quite a bit of research on processing facial expression (e.g., reviewed in Adolps, 2002; Goldman & Sri-pada, 2005). Results of neuroimaging studies have shown that processing a facial

Personality Dynamics: Embodiment, Meaning Construction, and the Social World edited by Daniel Cervone, Małgorzata Fajkowska, Michael W. Eysenck, and Tomasz Marusze-wski. Eliot Werner Publications, Clinton Corners, New York, 2013.

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144 Paula M. Niedenthal, Magdelena Rychlowska, and Piotr Szarota

expression of emotion in another person and experiencing that emotion oneself involve overlapping neural circuits (e.g., Wicker et al., 2003). Along with the larger body of work on mirror neurons (e.g., Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, Rizzolatti, 1996), this suggests that understanding someone else’s emotional expression and having an emotional experience oneself recruit similar systems (for related evi-dence with other facial expressions, see also Carr, Iacoboni, Dubeau, Mazziotta, & Lenzi, 2003; McIntosh, Reichmann-Decker, Winkielman, & Wilbarger, 2006).

This chapter looks at embodied emotion and the processing of the human smile, one of the most nuanced facial expressions. Although theories of embodied emotion have to guide us to answers about this process, they must also allow us to account for the possible differences in smile use and processing across cultures. We begin the chapter by reviewing some differences in how smiles are encoded (expressed) and decoded (understood) across cultures. Then we outline a new account of the basic structure of smile processing, the simulation of smiles (SIMS) model (Niedenthal, Mermillod, Marginer, & Hess, 2010). The SIMS model pro-poses a general, functional three-category typology of the smile and also outlines the behavior and brain processes that underlie the appreciation of a given smile as representing one of these three types. Then, in a third section, we consider how cultural differences moderate the basic processes of the SIMS model. These, we hope, will constitute hypotheses for future research on the smile.

SMILING IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERESPECTIVE

It will come as no surprise to the reader that there are both similarities and differ-ences across cultures in the meaning and the social use of the smile.

Cultural Similarities

Some of the most energetic and extensive cross-cultural research on the smile focuses on this expression as a signal friendliness or good intentions. As evi-dence of this signal, people with a smile on their face tend to be perceived more positively than those without (Hess, Beaupré, & Cheung, 2002). This relationship between smile and personality was fi rst reported by Thornton (1943), who found that smiling individuals tended to be rated higher in kindliness, honesty, and sense of humor. Since that fi rst demonstration, other studies have found support for similar associations between smiles and the perception of a variety of posi-tive personality traits—not only in Western societies including the United States (e.g., Reis et al., 1990), Brazil (Otta, Abrosio, & Hoshino, 1996) and Poland (Szarota, 2011), but also in Eastern societies such as Hong Kong (Lau, 1982) and Japan (Matsumoto & Kudoh, 1993).

The universal interpersonal value of smiling was also convincingly demon-strated in intergroup research by Beaupré and Hess (2003). In their study both French Canadians and recent immigrants from Asia and French-speaking Afri-can countries showed an ingroup bias for the attribution of smiles. Specifi cally,


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Embodied Simulation and the Human Smile 145

participants read a vignette describing a protagonist in a nonemotional, nonsocial situation (waiting for a computer to boot up) and chose one of six facial expres-sions as most appropriate to the context. Members of all three groups chose smiles more frequently as the most appropriate expression for members of their ingroup, whereas they more often chose neutral facial expressions as appropriate for out-group members. Thus the ingroup favoritism expressed itself in the bias toward associating their group members with the act of smiling in an ambiguous situation.

Research has also demonstrated that people trust smiling individuals more than nonsmiling individuals. Scharlemann, Eckel, Kacelnik, and Wilson (2001) used a game theory paradigm and showed that smiling individuals portrayed in photographs are trusted more than nonsmiling individuals. In another study by Brown, Palameta, and Moore (2003), the smile emerged as a consistent cue to intended altruism. And more recently Méhu and Dunbar (2008), who conducted a naturalistic observation of people interacting in small groups, found that smil-ing—as well as laughing—is more likely to be involved in the formation of coop-erative (compared with other less cooperative) relationships. That effect may be even more pronounced in preindustrial collectivistic societies, where economic transactions are not protected by formal institutions (Godoy et al., 2005).

Cultural Differences

Observations of cross-cultural similarities should not outweigh important dif-ferences how the smile is used and understood across cultures, however. Ekman and Friesen (1969) were among the fi rst to analyze cross-cultural differences in smiling within the framework of their concept of display rules. In Ekman and Friesen’s terms, display rules are norms learned early in childhood that help individuals manage and modify their emotional expressions depending on social context. Theoretically, display rules and expressive behavior are not the same. Display rules presumably refer to social conventions and cultural norms that dic-tate the modifi cation of expression. They can be implicit or explicit, and can operate intentionally or automatically (Matsumoto & Lee, 1993).

Ekman and Friesen (1969) describe six ways in which display rules can be deployed in order to manage emotions when they are aroused. These include expression, deamplifi cation, amplifi cation, neutralization, qualifi cation, and masking. Smiling plays important role in the last two. In qualifi cation the smile is used to comment on the expressed emotion (smiling at the same time as showing that one is miserable); in masking the person smiles only in order to hide his or her true feelings. While both qualifi cation and masking are clearly worth study-ing, only masking has gained substantial attention from researchers.

The importance of display rules was revealed in Friesen’s (1972) classic study, in which American and Japanese subjects viewed emotion-eliciting stim-uli (distressing fi lms) in two conditions—fi rst alone and then in the presence of a higher-status experimenter. In the alone condition, there were no differences between the American and Japanese subjects in displays of the emotions that were produced by the distressing fi lms. However, in the experimenter-present


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condition, the Japanese were more likely than the American subjects to mask their negative feelings by smiling. Ekman (1972) interpreted these differences as evidence of a Japanese display rule not to show negative emotions to a higher-status person. That interpretation was later challenged by Fridlund (1994), who suggested that the Japanese subjects smiled simply out of politeness. Under either interpretation the fact remains that a cultural difference in the use of smiles in particular social conditions was robustly observed.

More recently Matsumoto and colleagues (2008) used the Display Rule Assessment Inventory to examine cultural differences in display rules from 32 countries around the world. This new measure allows for an assessment of differ-ent behavioral responses in relation to multiple emotions and contexts by asking respondents to describe how they would regulate their displays of seven basic emotions in various social situations. It was predicted that the free expression of emotion would be more important in individualistic cultures, in which personal needs and interests are valued more than group goals. As expected, individual-ism was associated with higher expressivity norms for all emotions, while collec-tivism was associated with lower. Thus, in collectivistic cultures, masking and qualifying strategies were endorsed preferentially compared with individualistic cultures. The original data were later reanalyzed in another study (Szarota et al., 2009), where the focus was specifi cally on masking. The three selected cul-tures—the United States, Poland, and Indonesia—represented a wide spectrum on the individualism-collectivism and power distance dimensions.

It was predicted that in the more individualistic United States and Poland, the use of smiles as a masking device would be less popular than in the col-lectivistic Indonesia. This hypothesis was supported. The masking of negative emotions toward authority fi gures was more of a norm in the highly hierarchical culture of Indonesia. No differences in masking were found between Poland and the United States, despite the fact that Polish culture is on some measures more hierarchical than American culture. Based on these fi ndings, one might conclude that there is no difference in the expression of the smile in Poland and the United States—but there are some relevant fi ndings to the contrary (see Klos Sokol, 1997; Szarota, 2011; Wierzbicka, 1994, 1999), indicating that such differences do exist. In particular, as discussed below, the overall frequency of the smile in public to express friendliness seems to differ across the two cultures.

In another study Wiseman and Pan (2004) compared cultural and situational infl uences on the social appropriateness of smiling in China and the United States. Subjects were presented with the situations that operationalized differences in relational status, familiarity, and group identity. Of the nine situations, none called for the masking strategy described above and cross-cultural differences were found in four of them: (a) asking a stranger for directions; (b) winning a prize among strangers; (c) a stranger asking for directions; and (d) a disliked person embarrasses self. For all four of these situations, the U.S. respondents indicated a greater likelihood for smiling behavior. Moreover, there were signifi cant cross-cultural differences in the attributions that the subjects made in their decisions regarding the appropriateness of smiling. In addition, there was a strong tendency


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for American respondents to emphasize attributions based on internal emotions, and a tendency for Chinese respondents to emphasize attributions based on mod-esty and the face of the other person when explaining their decisions.

Smiles and Religious Teaching

Wiseman and Pan’s (2004) study highlights the fact that in order to understand the cultural context of smiling in a given culture, one should turn to specifi c cul-tural teachings and values, including religious teachings and values. The impor-tance of the face is one thing, but it is also important to note that Confucian values do not encourage courtesy toward strangers. Chinese people usually do not display positive feelings to all people, but only to shuren (literally, a cooked or ripe person)—namely, those whom they know (Ye, 2006). It would be con-sidered strange or frivolous if one smiled at a shegren (stranger). It is also true in Japan. Patterson et al. (2007) analyzed the behavior of pedestrians in Japan and the United States and their reactions toward strangers who either smiled or nodded in their direction. Only 2% of Japanese smiled back, whereas 25% of Americans showed the same reaction.

There is another cultural rule important in understanding the Chinese smile. In his classic study, Klineberg (1938) discusses Chinese etiquette books. We fi nd such warnings as the following: “Do not show your unhappiness easily and do not smile easily” and “Do not let your teeth be seen when you smile” (p. 518). That is, your smile must be so circumspect that the teeth do not show. For centuries “Do not show your teeth when smiling” was a strict rule of discipline, especially for Chi-nese women, who even used adornments like false dimples to make up for a scar-city of information conveyed by the closed-mouth smiles (see also Liu, Ge, Luo, & Luo, 2010). Only recently has this ancient tradition started to wane. It is interesting to note that during the Beijing Olympics Chinese hostesses were instructed not only to smile at strangers, but also to reveal six to eight teeth when they smiled.

The United States has a completely different religious history surround-ing the expression of cheerfulness, and thus the smile (Kotchemidova, 2005). According to Kotchemidova’s account of the social history of cheerfulness in the United States, American historians of emotions conclude that there was a change from a preference for expressions of melancholy to those of “good cheer” dur-ing the eighteenth century. Thus the early modern period of American culture was marked—consistent with European culture—by a fascination with feelings of sadness and melancholy (Amend, 2001; see Figure 1). Suffering was held, in traditional Christian teaching, to be the road to virtue. Parliamentary institutions on both continents endorsed a “culture of sadness” and so defi ned the norms of emotional expression in daily life. For instance, an analysis of seventeenth century diaries in both Britain and America reveal repeated descriptions of the individual as “doleful,” and women characterized themselves consistently as expressing sadness and tears (Stearns, 1988).

Kotchemidova (2005) suggests that the Age of Enlightenment in religious thought was an impetus for a change in the public expression of emotion as a


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religious act of virtue. According to the emerging thinking, enlightened individ-uals were supposed to seek happiness. Sadness and melancholy were considered passive and cheerfulness (by contrast) was held to be a sign of human agency, which was viewed in both England and the United States as a desirable charac-teristic. For example, in 1728 the evangelical poet John Byrom counseled that a cheerful disposition and frame of mind were the best way to show one’s thank-fulness to God (Stearns, 1988). Clearly, then, a very different social norm for smiling emerged in England and the United States, particularly when compared with cultures defi ned by entirely different religious traditions (see Figure 2).

In a recent study, Szarota (2010) analyzed cross-cultural differences in prefer-ence for social smiling among the users of one of the most popular instant messag-ing sites called Windows Live Messenger (formerly known as MSN Messenger, and often referred to as MSN), which is now available in more than sixty countries. As it turned out, there were places where a vast majority of MSN users (over 75%) presented a smiling face (e.g., Brazil, the United States, and Indonesia), but there were others where the smile apparently was not deemed appropriate in this context. For example, in Poland less than 40% of the photos included a smiling face.

What makes Poles resistant to smiling in this context may be a cultural pre-occupation with the face being a direct readout of internal states, as opposed to other possible social motives (such as those propagated in England and the United States) conveyed by the smile. As Wierzbicka (1999) puts it:

In Poland the assumption that a person’s face should refl ect his or her feelings is far more than an individual preference: it is a cultural premise, supported by linguistic evidence in the form of pejorative expressions like fałszywy uśmiech [a false smile] and sztuczny uśmiech [an artifi cial smile]. (p. 244)

Figure 1. Posing for the public eye in Russia in the late nineteenth century.


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Such expressions imply that someone is displaying good feelings toward another person that in fact are not felt, and that of course it is very bad to do so.

Similar interpretations are proposed in a recent book by Klos Sokol (1997), an American linguist who lives in Warsaw. “Americans smile more in situations where Poles tend not to” and “Poles don’t initiate an exchange of smiles in a quick or anonymous interaction.”

In everyday life, the approach to fl eeting interactions in Poland is often take-me-seriously. Rather than the cursory smile, surface courtesy means a slight nod of the head. And some Poles may not feel like masking their everyday preoccupations. From this perspective, the smile would be fake. (p. 70)

Further research will be necessary to document the empirical validity of many of these observation and conclusions.

SMILING IN SIMULATIONIST PERSPECTIVE: THE SIMULATION OF SMILES MODEL

The previous section documents differences in how smiles are used, mostly in public, across different cultures. The similarities and differences are striking. But how can we account for them in a way that helps further understanding so that the encoding and decoding of the smile across cultures can be rigorously

Figure 2. An American smile in the 1950s, from a member of the same family as that of the individuals portrayed in Figure 1.



modeled rather than described? The simulation of smiles model (Niedenthal et al., 2010) integrates the existing behavioral and neuroimaging studies that sug-gest new ways to explain the processing of smiles.

A Social Functional Classifi cation of Smiles

The SIMS model is based on a novel social functional typology of smiles. The fi rst class of smiles, consistent with analyses of Duchenne (1862/1990) and other types of “true” smiles (Ekman, 1994; Frank & Stennett, 2001; Izard, 1971), is the enjoyment smile, which is the display of positive internal states such as joy, amusement, or happiness. When seeing this type of smile, an observer should judge that the smiling person is happy. Enjoyment smiles may correspond in musculature to the nonhuman primate “play face” (Parr & Waller, 2006; van Hoof, 1967; see left panel of Figure 3). A second basic type of smile, the so-called affi liative smiles, could be homologous to the primate silent bared-teeth display (van Hoof, 1967; Waller & Dunbar, 2005; see right panel of Figure 3) displayed in submissive and bonding-promoting interactions. In humans affi lia-tive smiles may include greeting, friendly, appeasing, or embarrassed smiles—in sum, smiles expressing positive social motives. Thus a person displaying such a smile should be judged as friendly.

Finally, dominance smiles serve to communicate higher social status or con-trol. Such smiles may be displayed by organizational or political leaders—for instance, the smiles of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, who are perceived by some as “skilled proponents of the dominant smile” (Senior, Philips, Barnes, & David, 1999, p. 344). Dominance smiles may be accompanied by postural components of

Figure 3. Chimpanzee facial expressions related to the human smile. The left panel shows a play face believed to be homologous with laughter and shar-ing morphological features with the human enjoyment smile (Parr & Waller, 2006). The right panel shows a silent bared-teeth display, used in affi liative and appeasement contexts, believed to be homologous with the human affi li-ative smile and sharing similar musculature (Parr & Waller, 2006). Photo-graphs courtesy of Lisa Parr.



pride, such as the lifted chin. People who display such smiles should be perceived as being superior and sending a message, perhaps a negative one, from this secure social position. Studies currently underway in our laboratory aim to examine the functional typology proposed by Niedenthal et al. (2010) and to validate these three kinds of smile as distinctly produced and perceived facial displays.

Distinguishing Among Smiles

The purpose of the SIMS model is to account for the basic processes involved in determining what a given smile means. In theory, deciding that a smile is a smile of enjoyment, affi liation, or dominance could be supported by three differ-ent types of process. First, smiles can be classifi ed on the basis of their perceptual features and can be compared with their prototypical representations. The rec-ognition of a smile as such can be supported by activation of occipito-temporal cortices (Adolphs, 2002). People may use not only indices found in the face of the sender, but also information coming from their own mind. As described above, this second process for classifying smiles involves the top-down application of beliefs and stereotypes concerning the likelihood of different smiles: people have theories about the use of smiles depending upon the person and the social context that has been learned within the culture (Hess, Adams, & Kleck, 2005; Jakobs, Manstead, & Fischer, 1999). Such conceptual knowledge about facial displays can guide the interpretation of smiles. Finally, and more importantly, access to mean-ing of facial emotional expressions may be supported by embodied simulation.

Embodied simulation is a third process that can be relied on for determining whether a smile is a smile of enjoyment, affi liation, or dominance. It is a central concept in the SIMS model. Embodied simulation refers to the production of a corresponding state in the motor, somatosensory, affective, and reward systems (Niedenthal et al., 2010).

The SIMS Model

According to the SIMS model, such simulation is a basis for understanding the meaning of a smile. One important behavioral component of the embodied simu-lation is the automatic facial mimicry, defi ned as the overt or covert use of facial musculature by the observer to match another person’s facial expressions (Nie-denthal et al., 2010). The mimicry can be used to represent how the perceived smile feels (i.e., when mimicked by the observer). In addition, the model holds that eye contact between two persons is a suffi cient (although not necessary) trigger of facial mimicry and embodied simulation of smiles. The diffi culty of the task is another important criterion: while perceptual analysis is enough to recognize prototypical facial expressions, interpretation of ambiguous smiles (or smiles of uncertain meaning) may require embodied simulation.

How does it work in practice? In the core SIMS model, the perception of a non-prototypical smile of enjoyment is accompanied by activation in the amygdala that may enhance the probability of gaze exchange. As mentioned above, eye contact is



supposed to be a suffi cient trigger for embodied simulation. Its achievement pro-duces increased activation in the reward systems (or asymmetrical neural activation related to negative affect, in the case of dominance smiles) and in motor regions supporting motor mimicry (Schilbach, Eickhoff, Mojzisch, & Vogeley, 2008). These motor and limbic processes produce a corresponding sensation in the somato-sensory cortex, which is used to judge the smiling person as happy (or dominant).

Such pattern of neural activations is expected when smiles are interpreted via the embodied simulation—that is, when they have uncertain meaning, when eye contact is achieved, and when the observer is free to mimic the “smiler.” Besides this “basic” situation, the SIMS model also outlines how smiles are judged when eye contact or facial mimicry are inhibited for experimental or social reasons. The latter are most interesting while addressing individual and cross-cultural differences in judgment of facial expressions. We tend to establish eye contact with people whom we judge as equal (Penner, 1971), attractive (Gué-guen, Fischer-Lokou, Lefebvre, & Lamy, 2008; Walsh & Hewitt, 1985), and with whom we are close (Iizuka, 1992; Lohaus, Keller, & Voelker, 2001; Russo, 1975). The same is true for facial mimicry (Cheng & Chartrand, 2003; Likowski, Mühl-berger, Seibt, Pauli, & Weyers, 2008; Mondillon, Niedenthal, Gil, & Droit-Volet, 2007). Consequently, these two behaviors may be avoided in situations of contact with unliked individuals or members of outgroups of inferior status (Likowski et al., 2008; Ting-Toomey, 1999).

According to the SIMS model, when eye contact does not occur for social reasons, smiles are still judged via embodied simulation. Yet this time the emo-tional processing is detached from the perceived smile and guided by beliefs and stereotypes concerning the situation. Amygdala activation is observed, but in the absence of eye contact subsequent patterns of neural activations refl ect conceptual knowledge rather than the actual meaning of the smile. For example, in a context where a dominance smile is assumed, amygdala activation would be followed by withdrawal-related asymmetrical neural activation and correspond-ing motor activity. Since the latter is independent of the perceived smile (which can be, for example, the affi liative one), it does not count as facial mimicry. Then an image of the corresponding state is generated in the somatosensory cortex, and on that basis the smiling person is judged as “superior.” Thus when people avoid eye contact, they do not simulate the actual smile but their own conceptual knowledge. In contexts of inhibition of facial mimicry, activation of motor and emotion systems will be reduced or absent. Embodied simulation will not occur and judgments of smiles will be guided—again, by stereotypes and beliefs.

In sum, correct interpretation of subtle meanings of smiles is possible when the perceived smile is relevant (and has an uncertain meaning) to the observer and when both eye contact and mimicry support the embodied simulation.

Testing the SIMS Model

Recent fi ndings of Maringer, Krumhuber, Fischer, and Niedenthal (2011) support these predictions of the SIMS model. In the fi rst study, participants rated the



genuineness of “true” and “false” dynamic smiles displayed by animated male and female characters. One-half of the subjects were free to mimic the perceived expressions, and the other half held a pencil in their mouths so as to block facial mimicry. Results showed that in the second condition participants saw no dif-ference between true and false smiles. Yet this difference was signifi cant for the subjects who could mimic the perceived characters. Thus embodied simulation supported by facial mimicry seems important to accurately judge the meaning of smiles.

In a second study, smile context was manipulated. Subjects saw only true smiles. As in the fi rst experiment, mimicry was blocked for one-half of the par-ticipants. In the “positive smile” condition, subjects were instructed to imagine that the smiling character was a salesclerk who had just sold them a pair of shoes. In the “ambiguous smile” condition, the character was presented as a salesclerk who was trying to sell them a pair of shoes. As in the previous study, participants were asked to rate the genuineness of perceived smiles. Results showed that in conditions in which mimicry was inhibited, smiles were judged as more genuine in the positive context. Yet when participants could freely imitate the animated characters, no difference was found in judgments of authenticity as a function of the context in which smiles were seen. Thus when facial mimicry is blocked, beliefs and stereotypes seem to affect the interpretation of smiles.

Maringer et al.’s (2011) fi ndings have now been replicated in a series of studies using realistic videos displaying “true” and “false” smiles (Canadas, Niedenthal, & Lamotte, 2012). Subjects in those studies were asked to rate the genuineness of the smiles that they saw. Here facial mimicry of the participants was blocked using an individual mouthguard, a protective device covering the teeth and gums that effectively blocked mimicry. In the fi rst two studies, this condition of inhibited mimicry was compared with conditions in which subjects were free to imitate the perceived smiles. The mimicry conditions were further elaborated in order to control for other muscular movements, unrelated to facial mimicry. Thus subjects in a standard mimicry condition received no particular instructions (Study 1); those in another control condition involving the use of a muscle unrelated to mimicry had to hold a squeeze ball in their nondominant hand (Study 1 and Study 2); and in another mimicry condition, subjects had a fi nger cuff attached to their index fi nger (Study 2). Results of both experiments showed that discrimination between true and false smiles was altered only when participants’ mimicry was blocked with the mouthguard. Neither the squeeze ball nor the fi nger cuff, controlling as they did for distraction or muscular con-traction involved in using a mouthguard, affected the ratings of genuineness. This suggests that it was the absence of facial mimicry that was actually respon-sible for subjects in the mouthguard condition to distinguish between true and false smiles.

Another important prediction of the SIMS model mentioned above involves eye contact as a possible trigger of embodied simulation. Two recent studies (Rychlowska, Zinner, Musca, & Niedenthal, 2012) support this contention. The fi rst study used existing portrait paintings presenting different smiles and the



emotional impact as the measure of embodied simulation (which, unlike the per-ceptual analysis or top-down application of stereotypes, is supposed to modify the affective state of the perceiver). In the second experiment, subjects observed smiles in portrait photography and rated their positivity and genuineness (other indicators of embodied simulation). Findings from both studies yield support for the model: in the fi rst experiment, achieved eye contact elicited more emo-tion than nonachieved eye contact. Moreover, this effect was stronger for the ambiguous smiles—which, according to the SIMS model, require processing via embodied simulation.

The second study showed that eye contact increased the perceived positiv-ity and genuineness of smiles independent of their perceptual features. Another experiment will aim to compare facial EMG activity in smiles for which eye contact is achieved versus smiles in which it is not. If eye contact is a trigger for embodied simulation, facial mimicry will be greater in conditions of direct gaze (i.e., achieved eye contact) than in conditions of averted gaze.

In sum, the SIMS model is an integrative approach to understanding the decoding of smiles in different situations and cultures. Besides the perceptual features on the face of the sender, it addresses the question of the variables related to the perceiver—such as eye contact, mimicry, and beliefs concerning facial displays. All these parameters may vary across races, cultures, and indi-viduals, and even within individuals.

HOW DOES THE SIMS MODEL SPEAK TO CULTURE?

Naturally, in order to use the SIMS model to address cultural differences in the processing of smiles, a cultural construct is needed to guide the selection and organization of countries (such as those discussed at the beginning of this chap-ter) into cultural groups. We believe that the construct that will be generative of research in this regard is unlikely to be the distinction between individualism and collectivism, or even the notion of power distance. For example, it is not immediately clear how the distinction between individualistic and collectivist cultures will help us make predictions about the types of behaviors—includ-ing eye contact and mimicry—that are central to the SIMS model, without the predictions being heuristic stories that are generated very far afi eld from the behavior of interest.

Long History Migration: Homogeneity versus Heterogeneity

We propose a signifi cant cultural difference that is likely to predict variations in the encoding (display) and decoding (interpretation) of facial expression, perhaps notably the smile. Of theoretical interest here is the long history of migration as the basis of the current population of a country.

Consider the difference between how the populations of the United States, New Zealand, and Israel, versus the populations of Japan, France, and India



evolved over the last fi ve hundred years. For the former countries, present-day populations descended from extensive migration. The long migration history is, furthermore, highly differentiated such that individuals with similar social status but different languages and native cultures lived in close proximity over centuries. The present-day populations of the latter group of countries have not derived from migration but have been comparatively stable over the last fi ve hun-dred years. Thus the peoples of the former countries do not derive from the popu-lation of the same geographic entity that existed centuries ago, while the peoples of the latter countries do.

Putterman and Weil (2010) constructed a matrix that summarizes the extent to which the year 2000 population of 165 of the world’s countries is descendent from 172 source countries in the year 1500. Considering migration history since roughly the year 1500 makes sense because this is the approximate date at which European colonization of other continents began. Diagonal entries in the matrix can be taken as scores of the heterogeneity versus homogeneity of the present-day population, with scores of 0 indicating total heterogeneity and scores of 1 indicating perfect homogeneity. The United States is a good example of a society that due to a long history of population migration is highly heterogeneous, and receives a score of 0.03 in the matrix. Japan is an example of a country with per-fect homogeneity, receiving a score of 1.0.

In their analyses Putterman and Weil (2010) use the heterogeneity of popula-tion origins matrix to predict important economic outcomes. Controlling for fac-tors such as geography, climate, and language, results of one analysis indicated that heterogeneity is associated with higher current income. A second analysis revealed that heterogeneity robustly predicts within-country income inequal-ity. For this latter analysis, Putterman and Weil derived a number of different scores—two based on information in their matrix—that represent different ways to conceptualize heterogeneity. The strongest predictors of income inequality were the indicators derived from their matrix that represent long history migra-tion rather than current heterogeneity, suggesting that the matrix captures some-thing about the evolution of the present population and not its proximal makeup.

What is of interest here is the hypothesis that the relative heterogeneity ver-sus homogeneity of a country, determined not only by considering the present day but rather the long history of a country, has affected the processes of decod-ing facial expressions of emotion—with the smile being the prime example.

For example, we propose that signifi cant differences between the processes of encoding and decoding smiles in ingroup (also private) versus intergroup (also public) settings will be observed in homogeneous countries, in which personal emotions are neither valued nor ambiguous (because expectations for emotions are shared). In other words, in public displays, smiles will follow explicit display rules (including that they should be infrequent) in homogeneous countries and their meaning will be derived by the situation. In terms of the SIMS model, then, eye contact and facial mimicry will not be used to decode smiles in such settings, but rather recourse to shared beliefs will ground meaning. In heterogeneous countries, in which the present-day society emerged from intermingling peoples



with different cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions, emotions should be communicated more directly and often (because no rules for the situation and no expectations for agreement are held). In terms of the SIMS model, even in inter-group and public settings, the behaviors of eye contact and the resulting mimicry should be observed and should be used to produce emotional simulation, on the basis of which a smile can be understood.

Findings in support of this general conclusion come from a number of stud-ies. For example, Mondillon et al. (2007) showed that Chinese participants living in France tended to imitate both the facial expression of anger of Chinese and French target faces, while French participants living in France imitated only the French—and not the Chinese—target faces. This suggests that when individuals are trying to assimilate to a new culture, in which norms for emotional expres-sion and meaning are not known, a reliance on a strongly bottom-up strategy (embodied simulation of the perceived facial expression) is a more useful decod-ing strategy. Thus in such circumstances or such societies, individuals will tend to use gaze to collect relevant facial information, imitate, and consequently expe-rience a corresponding emotional state when perceiving facial expressions of both cultural ingroup and outgroup members (Beaupré & Hess, 2003).

This general hypothesis is just one of many predictions generated by the SIMS model. Examining fi xation patterns, cognitive patterns used to decode facial expressions, cultural norms concerning eye contact, and their infl uence on embodied simulation of smiles will all help address cross-cultural differences in perceiving facial displays. For example, despite the Eastern cultural norm promoting gaze avoidance (Knapp & Hall, 2005), recent results suggest that while categorizing facial expressions, East Asian observers—compared with Western Caucasian observers—preferentially use information from the eyes and ignore the mouth region (Jack, Caldara, & Schyns, in 2011). Moreover, Hess and Thibault (2008) showed that contrary to French Canadians, Chinese participants were not guided by the perceptual markers in their judgments of genuineness of smiles. Does this mean that since East Asian observers look more in the eyes while judging facial expressions, they simulate more and are better able to rec-ognize their subtle meanings? The SIMS model proposes a coherent framework to explore this kind of question.

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Embodied simulation and the human smile: Linking processing similarities to cultural differences. differences