Facial expression heritability on twins

• Grant number: 19/22035-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2019
• End date: October 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Agreement: Natura
• Principal Investigator: Emma Otta
• Grantee: Renata Aparecida de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/50282-5 - Positive psychology and neuroscience: translational research to promote well-being and emotional regulation, AP.PCPE

Abstract

The USP Twin Panel is part of the Centro de Pesquisa Aplicada de Bem-Estar e Comportamento Humano (Process 14/50282-5) coordinated by Profa. Emma Otta. It was created in early 2017 to study the behavior of twins from the perspective of psychology. Twin studies are rare in the Brazilian population and with the recent increase in twin birth rates in the city of São Paulo over the last decade (Otta et al., 2016), the study of this population is even more important. The aim of the study is to analyze the frequency of facial expressions of happy, sad and disgust and compare between pairs of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins in response to videos with different affective valences. The hypothesis is that the MZ siblings show greater similarity in facial expressiveness compared to same-sex dizygotic. Participants were recruited to the Lab and watched a 3-minute movie containing scenes from a sad, a disgusting and a happy video. Participants also answered the Zygosity Questionnaire from Christiansen et al. (2003). Facial expressions will be analyzed by the student through FACEREADER software. (AU)