Was Darwin wrong about emotions?

Association for Psychological Science ^ | December 13, 2011

[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.