Tourangeau and Ellsworth (1979) have tested a hypothesis about the role of voluntarily innervated facial responses in the experience of emotion and disconfirmed that hypothesis. My theory (Tomkins, 1962) would also have predicted that their hypothesis would be disconfirmed. Although the authors do not claim that they are involved in a crucial test of my theory, nonetheless their conclusion might lead readers to believe that they had, in fact, disconfirmed the theory, since in their summary they say: “The effect of the stimuli does not, as the facial feedback hypothesis predicts, depend on the facial response” (p. 1530). This is a familiar example of a chronic malaise: summarizing more than one has demonstrated.

Tourangeau and Ellsworth are aware that they are testing something other than my theory, and they oscillate among saying so explicitly, saying that their hypothesis is really a necessary derivative of that theory, and saying that if I don't myself assert their hypothesis, that I ought to.