Bucy, E., & Bradley, S. D. (2003, October). Facing crisis: Attentional and EMG responses to inappropriate leader displays [Abstract]. Psychophysiology, 40(Suppl. 1), S30.

Abstract
An experiment was conducted to show how incongruent, or counterempathic, responses to facial expressions may be evoked in political communication. Subjects were shown a series of four crisis news stories, each followed by a 30-second televised reaction of President Bill Clinton. The story-reaction sequences varied by story topic, level of emotion, and degree of leader display appropriateness. Dependent measures included tonic HR, SCR frequency and amplitude, and zygomatic and corrugator EMG activation. The EMG data show that subjects responded negatively to positive, high-intensity (i.e., inappropriate) displays in reaction to crisis news. This condition resulted in the greatest corrugator activation and least zygomatic activation. Participants did not mimic a leader smile when it was inappropriate. Viewed over time, corrugator activity increased immediately forinappropriate positive displays but increased slowly for congruentnegative displays. In a negative emotional context, subjects frownedmore quickly in response to a smile than a frown. High-intensitydisplays also elicited greater viewer attention, as evidenced by cardiacdeceleration. Valence of the display did not affect HR. When consideringthe news context, viewers exhibited the greatest cardiac decelerationwhen high-intensity displays followed negative news, in an evolutionarily consistent pattern. The frequency of SCRs was highestwhen negative presidential reactions followed negative news. When the presidential display was incongruent with the news context, subjectsshowed the lowest SCR frequency.