In 1924, Carney Landis conducted an experiment to determine if emotions elicited universal facial expressions. He had students smell ammonia, watch porn, and put their hands in a bucket of frogs to induce expressions. Landis then took photos of their faces. He also asked students to decapitate a live rat, and found that two-thirds complied despite their initial resistance. While the experiment showed people's willingness to obey, it revealed there is variability in facial expressions for the same emotion.

1. Landis Facial Expression Experiment By: Kassy Hollar

2. In 1924 Carney Landis designed an experiment to study whether emotions were universal facial expressions. He wanted to know if there were specific expressions used by all to show shock or disgust? Seems like a normal enough experiment, however, Landis’ methods of testing this were far from normal

3. He drew black lines on the students faces to show the facial expressions better. His expression-inducing tests were smelling ammonia, watching porn, and placing their hands into a bucket of frogs.

4. As they reacted, he snapped pictures of their faces. The climax of the experiment was when he carried out a live white rat on a tray and asked them to decapitate it.

5. Most people initially resisted his request, but eventually two-thirds did as he ordered. Landis noted that "The effort and attempt to hurry usually resulted in a rather awkward and prolonged job of decapitation." For the one-third that refused, Landis took the knife and did it himself.

6. The experiment showed the willingness of people to obey anything no matter how wrong it is. It turns out that people use a wide variety of expressions to show the same emotion, even an emotion such as disgust at having to decapitate a rat.

7. Pictures

8. Works Cited http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/ecomments/4744/ http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science//item/landis_universal_facial_expression_unethical_experiment