Fritz Strack

Fritz Strack (born February 6, 1950)^[1] is a German social psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Würzburg.^[2] Strack is a member of Germany's National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for psychology in 2019.^[3]

Fritz Strack
Born	(1950-02-06) February 6, 1950 (age 75) Landau, Pfalz, Germany
Education	University of Mannheim Stanford University
Scientific career
Fields	Social psychology
Institutions	University of Würzburg

He was the lead author of a frequently cited^{[4][failed verification]} 1988 study that provided support for the facial feedback hypothesis.

Study on facial feedback

Strack's study asked participants to hold a pen in their mouths in such a way as to make them either smile or frown, and then had them rate how funny a series of the Far Side cartoons were. In this study, participants who were smiling rated the cartoons as funnier, on average, compared to those who were frowning.^[5] In 2016, a study by a separate research team was published which failed to replicate the original study's results.^[6][7] Strack himself suggested^[8] that the negative results of the replication study may have been caused by its researchers' use of a video camera to record the participants' responses. He also took issue with the replication study's choice of the same cartoons that had originally been used in 1985.^[9] Subsequent research has supported Strack's claim that participants knowing they are being recorded by cameras led to the replication study's negative result.^[10][11] Further evidence has provided additional support for both the pen procedure and the validity of the facial-feedback hypothesis.^[12][13]