Читать книгу Social Psychology - Daniel W. Barrett - Страница 89

Electromyography (EMG) also measures electrical activity but does so by detecting muscle movements instead of surface skin conductance. Social psychologists have employed EMG to measure muscle movements in the face that are thought to reflect emotional and/or attitudinal states, and self-reports of depth of message processing (Cacioppo & Petty, 1981). The underlying rationale is that the activity of specific muscles is correlated with verbal self-reports and behavioral measures, and thus the EMG can provide additional evidence of cognitive and affective processes (Blascovich, 2000; Blascovich & Seery, 2007). For instance, Cacioppo and Petty (1981) describe how increased movement (and electrical activity) of facial muscles associated with speech parallel other measures of deeper processing of persuasive messages. As we’ll discuss in Chapter 7, how carefully we examine the arguments in a message impacts how much we are persuaded by them. It is fascinating that our facial muscles can reflect whether or not we are thinking deeply or superficially! Facial EMG can also detect the positivity or negativity of emotional reactions and the intensity of those reactions among message recipients during message exposure (Cacioppo, Petty, Losch, & Kim, 1986). Social psychologists have utilized facial EMG in research on the mere exposure effect (see Chapter 11) (Harmon-Jones & Allen, 2001), stereotyping (see Chapter 10) (Vanman, Saltz, Nathan, & Warren, 2004), and other topics in social psychology (Bartholow & Dickter, 2007; Hess, 2009).