Facial Expressions Of Emotion Are Innate, Not Learned
Spontaneous Facial Expressions of Emotion of Congenitally and Noncongenitally Blind Individuals:
The study of the spontaneous expressions of blind individuals offers a unique opportunity to understand basic processes concerning the emergence and source of facial expressions of emotion. In this study, the authors compared the expressions of congenitally and noncongenitally blind athletes in the 2004 Paralympic Games with each other and with those produced by sighted athletes in the 2004 Olympic Games. The authors also examined how expressions change from 1 context to another. There were no differences between congenitally blind, noncongenitally blind, and sighted athletes, either on the level of individual facial actions or in facial emotion configurations. Blind athletes did produce more overall facial activity, but these were isolated to head and eye movements. The blind athletes’ expressions differentiated whether they had won or lost a medal match at 3 different points in time, and there were no cultural differences in expression. These findings provide compelling evidence that the production of spontaneous facial expressions of emotion is not dependent on observational learning but simultaneously demonstrates a learned component to the social management of expressions, even among blind individuals.
Also see ScienceDaily.
Labels: Psychology
The second and third paragraphs of the paper surely present a false dichotomy; ?Facial expressions of emotion, thus, are universal because the same expressions are observed and modeled around the world in response to the same types of emotionally evocative situations.? ?? observation of others’ facial expressions is surely not necessary for perception of their responses to one’s own facial expressions.
Weird how journalists are writing this up as a big discovery when we’ve known this for 40 years.
Then again, it’s weird that we needed Ekman to tell us this in the first place. Anyone who’s visited a far-off country knows that emotional expressions (facial and vocal too) are largely cross-cultural.
Well, a lot of East Asians smile stupidly when they feel really uncomfortable, embarassed etc. It’s disconcerting…
But yeah, in general facial expression matters
Well, a lot of East Asians smile stupidly when they feel really uncomfortable, embarassed etc. It’s disconcerting… It’s not just East Asians. Lots of people do this when they feel awkward, embarrassed, etc., and can’t express their feelings because of social disapproval.
East Asians might have cultures that disapprove of displaying such emotions in public more than most, but the basic response is (as far as my limited experience indicates) universal.
Caledonian,
Indeed, the English, “Grin and bear it” expression…
Paul Ekman’s way ahead of ya – he videotaped Westerners and Japanese people watching some gruesome videos. The Japanese smiled rather than showing disgust, presumably for cultural reasons, but if you look at the video of their faces in slow-motion, you can see that their initial reaction is one of disgust, the forced smile comes later…
An old Korean saying:
“Never trust Japanese goods or Japanese smiles.
so the instinctual “first reaction” for a facial reaction is the same, but then cultural forces take over a fraction of a second later…
also… were they showing the test subjects 2 girls 1 cup? That would be funny to find on a list of references for a scientific paper…
No, this was the 1970s I think. By today’s standards it would probably look really lame