TY - JOUR A1 - Scheer, Clara A1 - Kubowitsch, Simone A1 - Dendorfer, Sebastian A1 - Jansen, Petra T1 - Happy Enough to Relax? How Positive and Negative Emotions Activate Different Muscular Regions in the Back - an Explorative Study T2 - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Embodiment theories have proposed a reciprocal relationship between emotional state and bodily reactions. Besides large body postures, recent studies have found emotions to affect rather subtle bodily expressions, such as slumped or upright sitting posture. This study investigated back muscle activity as an indication of an effect of positive and negative emotions on the sitting position. The electromyography (EMG) activity of six back muscles was recorded in 31 healthy subjects during exposure to positive and negative affective pictures. A resting period was used as a control condition. Increased muscle activity patterns in the back were found during the exposure to negative emotional stimuli, which was mainly measured in the lumbar and thorax regions. The positive emotion condition caused no elevated activity. The findings show that negative emotions lead to increased differential muscle activity in the back and thus corroborate those of previous research that emotion affects subtle bodily expressions. KW - electromyography KW - muscle activity KW - emotion KW - sadness KW - happiness KW - embodiment Y1 - 2021 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-oth-regensburg/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1962 SN - 1664-1078 VL - Volume 12 IS - May 2021 PB - Frontiers Media ER -