@article{ref1,
title="Facing the enemy: spontaneous facial reactions towards suffering opponents",
journal="Psychophysiology",
year="2021",
author="Mitschke, Vanessa and Eder, Andreas B.",
volume="58",
number="8",
pages="e13835-e13835",
abstract="The suffering of an opponent is an important social affective cue that modulates how aggressive interactions progress. To investigate the affective consequences of opponent suffering on a revenge seeking individual, two experiments (total N = 82) recorded facial muscle activity while participants observed the reaction of a provoking opponent to a (retaliatory) sound punishment in a laboratory aggression task. Opponents reacted via prerecorded videos either with facial displays of pain, sadness, or neutrality. <br><br>RESULTS indicate that participants enjoyed seeing the provocateur suffer: indexed by a coordinated muscle response featuring an increase in zygomaticus major (and orbicularis oculi muscle) activation accompanied by a decrease in corrugator supercilii activation. This positive facial reaction was only shown while a provoking opponent expressed pain. Expressions of sadness, and administration of sound blasts to nonprovoking opponents, did not modulate facial activity. Overall, the results suggest that revenge-seeking individuals enjoy observing the offender suffer, which could represent schadenfreude or satisfaction of having succeeded in the retaliation goal.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0048-5772",
doi="10.1111/psyp.13835",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13835"
}