Innate Expressions of Emotion

333
Communicating Emotion
doing
2
learn
WHAT ARE THEY FEELING?
People’s emotions are usually
“written on their faces.” Jot
down what emotions you think these
people are feeling, and then look at the
footnote on page 334 to see how well
you “read” their emotions.
by
THE UNIVERSAL SMILE The idea that
some emotional expressions are inborn is
supported by the fact that the facial
movement pattern we call a smile is related to happiness, pleasure, and other
positive emotions in cultures throughout
the world.
Imagine a woman watching television. You can see her face, but not what she sees
on the screen. She might be deep in complex thought, perhaps comparing her investment decisions with those of the experts being interviewed on CNBC. Or she might be
thinking of nothing at all as she loses herself in a rerun of Seinfeld. In other words, you
can’t tell much about what she is thinking just by looking at her. But if the TV program
creates an emotional experience, you will be able to make a reasonably accurate guess
about which emotion she is feeling based on her facial expressions. The human face
can create thousands of different expressions, and people—especially females—are
good at detecting them (McClure, 2000; Zajonc, 1998). Observers can see even very
small facial movements: A twitch of the mouth can carry a lot of information
(Ambadar, Schooler, & Cohn, 2005). Are emotional facial expressions innate, or are they
learned? And how are they used in communicating emotion?
Innate Expressions of Emotion
Charles Darwin observed that some facial expressions seem to be universal (Darwin,
1872/1965). He proposed that these expressions are genetically determined, passed on
biologically from one generation to the next. The facial expressions seen today, said
Darwin, are those that have been most effective over the centuries for telling others
something about how a person is feeling. If someone is scowling with teeth clenched,
for example, you will probably assume that the person is angry. And you will be unlikely
to choose that particular moment to ask for a loan (Marsh, Ambady, & Kleck, 2005).
Infants provide one source of evidence that some facial expressions are innate. Newborns do not have to be taught to grimace in pain, to smile in pleasure, or to blink
when startled (Balaban, 1995). Even blind infants, who cannot imitate adults’ expressions, show the same emotional expressions as do sighted infants (Goodenough, 1932).
A second line of evidence for innate facial expressions comes from studies showing
that for the most basic emotions, people in all cultures show similar facial responses to
similar emotional stimuli (Hejmadi, Davidson, & Rozin, 2000; Zajonc, 1998). Participants
in these studies looked at photographs of people’s faces and then tried to name the emotion each person was feeling. The pattern of facial movements we call a smile, for example, is universally related to positive emotions. Sadness is almost always accompanied by
slackened muscle tone and a “long” face. Likewise, in almost all cultures, people contort
their faces in a similar way when shown something they find disgusting. And a furrowed
brow is frequently associated with frustration or unpleasantness (Ekman, 1994).
Anger is also linked with a facial expression recognized by almost all cultures. One
study examined ceremonial masks of various Western and non-Western cultures (Aronoff,
Barclay, & Stevenson, 1988). The angry, threatening masks of all eighteen cultures contained similar elements, such as triangular eyes and diagonal lines on the cheeks. In particular, angular and diagonal elements carry the impression of threat (see Figure 8.10).