The development of facial mimicry: An examination of a key copy-mechanism in infants within natural social contexts.

From very young ages, people mimic facial expressions to understand and match the emotional states of
others, a phenomenon known as facial mimicry. The matching of facial expressions, especially of those
associated with positive emotions (i.e., smiles), is known to serve important socio-positive functions.
Despite this knowledge, our understanding of how and when this behaviour develops in infants and
children remains scarce. Here, I propose a new, alternative approach to studying early-life facial mimicry
that addresses the methodological drawbacks of current research in this field. Specifically, the aim of this
proposed project is to examine facial mimicry in infants and children engaging in their usual, natural
social environments. First, a developmental timeline of facial mimicry will be created to determine when
infants acquire the capacities for facial mimicry and how it develops in form. Second, the social role of
facial mimicry will be investigated in the context of development, with a focus on how mimicry of
positive emotional expressions affects playful, affiliative interactions between peers. Finally, to make
ecologically valid claims about human behaviour, this research aims to investigate the universality of
facial mimicry by studying both UK and Zambian children. This proposed research will provide novel,
important insight into the role of facial mimicry for socio-emotional development in infants and children.