Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

facial-feedback hypothesis
The hypothesis that facial expressions 
not only refl ect emotional experience 
but also help determine how people 
experience and label emotions.
“And just exactly what is that expression intended to convey?”
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feL82795_ch10_306-339.indd Page 336 8/18/10 6:25 PM user-f464

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Applying Psychology 
in the 21st Century
Smiling Athletes: Do 
Their Facial Expressions 
Come Naturally?
There’s no more stirring sight than medal-
winning Olympic athletes standing on the 
podium as their national anthem is played. 
Have you ever wondered why—no matter 
what the winners’ native countries—their 
facial expressions are so readily under-
standable?
The question of whether the similarity 
of basic facial expressions are due to in-
nate, inborn factors or if people learn them 
in similar ways across cultures has fasci-
nated psychologists for decades. A new 
study sheds light on this issue, adding to 
the evidence that basic facial expressions 
are inborn rather than learned.
The researchers used a clever tactic to 
approach this question: They examined the 
facial expressions of people blind from 
birth who, of course, could not have learned 
these behaviors by observing them in oth-
ers. Judo athletes who won medals in the 
Olympic Games were photographed when 
they completed their matches, during the 
awards ceremony, and when they were on 
the medalists’ podium. Their facial expres-
sions were compared with blind judo 
athletes—some of them blind from birth—
who won medals in the Paralympic Games, 
a similar competition for athletes with dis-
abilities. The blind medalists were photo-
graphed at corresponding times to the 
sighted ones. Comparisons of the photo-
graphs revealed that the blind athletes 
expressed anger, contempt, disgust, sadness, 
surprise, and smiling behavior in the same 
ways as the sighted athletes did (Ekman, 
2003; Matsumoto & Willingham, 2009).
Most of the blind athletes smiled when 
they fi nished their matches and were 
standing on the podium, and nearly all 
produced genuine smiles when they were 
receiving their medals. The sighted athletes 
showed comparable frequency of smiling 
across these different contexts. More inter-
estingly, of the blind athletes who won 
silver medals (who had lost the match and 
the gold), none smiled following the 
match, but most smiled politely while on 
the
podium and while receiving their 
medals. This is also what the sighted silver 
medalists did, showing that all the athletes 
knew to put on a pleased expression at the 
appropriate time.
The athletes who were blind from birth 
showed no differences from the athletes who 
became blind later in life. These fi ndings col-
lectively show that blind and sighted people 
express emotion on their faces in the same 
ways across different contexts, suggesting 
that observation of others is not a precondi-
tion for learning facial expression of emotion 
(Matsumoto & Willingham, 2009).
• How could blind athletes have learned when they would be expected to “smile 
politely,” even if they did not feel happiness?
• Although it seems like basic emotions are expressed similarly across cultures, can 
you think of examples of nonverbal behaviors that differ across cultures?