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Facial Affective Behavior in Mental Disorder

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Abstract

Facial behavior can be seen as one part of more general behavior to create specific relationship patterns by communicating distinct affective information. Previous results on disorder-specific facial affective behavior are mixed: thus, a disorder-related specificity of facial affective expression has been called into question. We examined the facial affective behavior of patients attending a clinical interview that focused on different and often difficult aspects of life. Facial affective behavior was coded with FACS in 90 female subjects: 74 patients with different mental disorders and 16 healthy controls. Differences in facial affective behavior (according to EmFACS) between diagnostic groups (those with borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, eating disorders, and healthy controls) were calculated. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to detect subgroups of facial affective patterns, and the clusters were linked to disorder groups. Frequencies of facial affective behavior were correlated with clinical severity scores. No significant differences in facial affective behavior between diagnostic groups were found. Furthermore, no group-specific facial lead affect was found in this sample: all groups showed disgust as the most frequent expression. Additionally, frequency of facial affective behavior was not substantially related to clinical severity variables. Clusters of facial affective behavior could be extracted but were neither related to diagnostic groups nor to clinical severity scores. Our results fail to find evidence for disorder-specific facial affective behavior. Possible reasons for our results, such as the problem-focused clinical interview, high comorbidity, the non-dyadic analysis, and the insufficiency of analyzing pure frequencies, are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The present results originated as part of the research-project “Affectivity, Relationship, and Mental Disorder” (principal investigator: Cord Benecke), supported by Grant No. 10873 from the Jubiläumsfonds of the Austrian National Bank, and by Grant No. 0404-235 from the Tiroler Wissenschaftsfonds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Doris Peham, Cathrin Schiestl, Eva Huber & Dietmar Kratzer

  2. Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Medical University Ulm, Ulm, Germany

    Reiner Dahlbender

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Astrid Bock & Wilfried Biebl

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, Holländische Str. 36-38, 34127, Kassel, Germany

    Johannes Zimmermann & Cord Benecke

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  1. Doris Peham
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  9. Cord Benecke
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Correspondence to Cord Benecke.

Appendix

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Table 8 Facial affective behavior in mental disorders: summary of previous findings
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Peham, D., Bock, A., Schiestl, C. et al. Facial Affective Behavior in Mental Disorder. J Nonverbal Behav 39, 371–396 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-015-0216-6

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