Botox Reduces Emotional Response

When comedians poke fun at the popular cosmetic treatment Botox, they portray people whose faces have become so frozen they can’t express their emotions. Although the jokes are exaggerated, new research suggests that the reduced ability to show emotions through facial expression can actually reduce the intensity of emotions that people experience.

A team of psychologists from Columbia University in New York studied two groups of people who had both received anti-wrinkle cosmetic treatments:  one group received Botox injections (which partially freeze facial muscles to stop wrinkles) and the other were treated with Restylane, a chemical filler that, unlike Botox, does not paralyze facial muscles.

The subjects were tested in their emotional responsiveness both before and after receiving the cosmetic treatment. To test their emotional responses, they were asked to watch video clips that were both positive and negative, and afterward they filled in questionnaires about their emotional experiences.

Following the cosmetic treatment, the Botox-treated patients still had appropriate emotional responses, but the intensity of their responses was on average lower than that of the control group. Specifically, the Botox-treated groups had less intense responses to the positive video clips after treatment. The control group treated with Restylane actually had an increase in negative response to the negative video clip following treatment.

The researchers concluded that the feedback the brain receives from emotional facial expressions actually intensifies the reaction. This fits with a theory that has circulated about emotion for over a century: physical expression of emotion actually creates the emotion. The early psychologist William James actually held that if an emotion wasn’t demonstrated physically, it did not exist. It’s a theory that still circulates in popular culture:  Smile and you’ll feel better; fake it till you make it.

The Columbia researchers don’t go so far as to say that smiling creates happiness, but they do say their study indicates that facial reactions to emotion do influence the emotional reactions.

The study, authored by Dr. Joshua Davis and colleagues, was reported in the most recent issue of the journal Emotion.