Was Darwin wrong about emotions?

Association for Psychological Science ^ | December 13, 2011

[decimon]

Contrary to what many psychological scientists think, people do not all have the same set of biologically "basic" emotions, and those emotions are not automatically expressed on the faces of those around us, according to the author of a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. This means a recent move to train security workers to recognize "basic" emotions from expressions might be misguided.

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his debate isn't purely academic. It has consequences for how clinicians are trained and also for the security industry. In recent years there's been an explosion of training programs that are meant to help security officers of all kinds identify people who are up to something nefarious. But this training might be misguided, Barrett says. "There's a lot of evidence that there is no signature for fear or anger or sadness that you could detect in another person. If you want to improve your accuracy in reading emotion in another person, you have to also take the context into account."

Incidentally, the theory that emotional expressions evolved for specific functions is normally attributed to Charles Darwin, in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. But Darwin didn't write that emotional expressions are functional. "If you're going to cite Darwin as evidence that you're right, you'd better cite him correctly," Barrett says. Darwin thought that emotional expressions – smiles, frowns, and so on –were akin to the vestigial tailbone – and occurred even though they are of no use.

[decimon]

To the former eye-contact is an offense to one's elders while to the former lack of eye contact, or the appearance of avoiding eye-contact, is prelude to physical attack.

Decades ago, I read of a study showing that black Americans made more eye contact than did white Americans. Males, anyway. The study found that white males often interpreted the greater eye contact as being aggressive and the black males interpreted the lesser eye contact as being disingenuous. If that study was correct then things can certainly change.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

You have to read the microexpressions.

[Talisker]

If you want to improve your accuracy in reading emotion in another person, you have to also take the context into account."

Context? We don't need no stinking context!

[mamelukesabre]

If you dig into it, I think you will find white males really are an oddity in almost every way. They have the highest incidence of color blindness, tone deafness, smell and taste deficits. They are the most likely to be unresponsive or under-responsive to pharmaceuticals and the least likely to succumb to addictions. They have the highest pain thresholds and the widest comfort zone in terms of environmental temperatures. I could go on.

I have never heard of the eye contact thing, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least.

[A_perfect_lady]

The downer of it is, because I have never associated facial expression with emotion, I can't read others either. I'm kind of a stranger in a strange land most of the time. People don't understand me and I don't understand them either. I'm getting better as I get older, but it's slow going. Humans are a mystery to me.

I can read cats, though.