Results and Analyses -------------------- We recruited 187 participants (120 female, 67 male; M age = 19.8; SD age = 3.9), 185 of whom were students. None of the participants were Psychology or Neuroscience students, and none had previously taken an Introduction to Psychology course at the university level. A total of 88 participants were excluded: 57 participants were excluded because we were unable to review their videos to ensure that they were holding the pen correctly due to a technical failure, 21 participants failed to hold the pen correctly for at least 3 of the cartoons and were excluded based on the video rating, 4 participants were excluded because they identified the goal of the study in the exit questionnaire, 5 participants were excluded because they indicated they did not understand the cartoons, and 1 participant was excluded because his/her average cartoon rating exceeded 2.5 standard deviations from the group mean of the condition. A remaining total of 99 participants (49 in the smile condition, 50 in the pout condition) were included in data analyses. There was no difference between the smile condition (M = 4.91, SD = 1.49) and the pout condition (M = 4.71, SD = 1.31) in ratings of amusement when viewing the cartoons, t(97) = 0.72, p = .24, one-tailed. We also assessed whether any other dependent measures, including our additional measures, differed by condition (all two-tailed tests). Participants in the pout condition (M = 5.30, SD = 2.06) reported that they felt more physical discomfort while holding the pen than participants in the smile condition (M = 4.43, SD = 2.22), t(97) = 2.03, p = .05, and participants in the pout condition (M = 6.22, SD = 1.73) also believed they were less successful at holding the pen correctly than participants in the smile condition (M = 7.04, SD = 1.81), t(97) = -2.31, p = .02. Participants in the pout condition (M = 2.32, SD = 1.91) reported that in everyday life their mouth formed the same shape as when they were holding the pen more frequently than participants in the smile condition (M = 1.53, SD = 1.28), t(97) = 2.41, p = .02. Participants rated Task 1 (drawing lines to connect numbers) as more difficult in the smile condition (M = 5.57, SD = 1.98) than in the pout condition (M = 4.52, SD = 2.10), t(97) = -2.56, p = .01, but rated Task 2 (underlining vowels) as more difficult in the pout condition (M = 4.68, SD = 1.86) than in the smile condition (M = 3.80, SD = 1.77), t(97) = 2.43, p = .02. No other dependent measures differed significantly by condition.