Does Biological Motion Transmit Information about the Emotional States of Others?

Science released an article entitled “Facial Expressions—Including Fear—May Not Be as Universal as We Thought”, written by Michael Pierce on October 17, 2016. In this article Pierce discusses how 50 years ago it was assumed that facial expressions were universal. However, it has been found that in the present day, this may not be the case. Expressions such as happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, or hunger, were all assumed to be expressed the same way as well as interpreted the same way. A study was conducted in the Trobriand Islands, were Trobrianders were shown as series of photos with facial expressions. They were asked to describe the emotions they interpreted from the photos, the results were intriguing. Pierce (2016) describes how

Emotions play an extremely important role in human mental life. Unlike the chimpanzee, human emotions are easier to read because of their physical responses such as tears in their eyes or their lips changing shape. In the same way as chimpanzees, humans use gestures to communicate with each other, yet they use words instead of sounds.

Body movement and posture. The way people move, sit, cross their arms and legs can communicate many different emotions such as interest, boredom or concern.

Christakis and Fowler suggest that emotions most likely began in early human evolutionary stages to promote the bonding of mother and child; later expanding to other family members, then non family members. The ability to read moods and pass them onto each other could have aided early humans in their everyday activities, due to the lack of fully developed verbal communication. It is also stated, emotions travel faster than words. It is faster to read an individual’s face to understand their emotions than it is to wait for the verbal communication that comes along with it; which leads into what the authors call Emotional

Thesis Statement: Body language expresses emotions and actions unconsciously and differs between men and women depending on their brain type, emotional experience and culture.

It can show: Happiness, sadness, frustration, confusion, disbelief, nervousness, and if we’re fabricating a story or recalling a memory

In chapter 8 of Handbook of Emotions, The Evolutionary Psychology of the Emotions and Their Relationship to Internal Regulatory Variables, Tooby & Cosmides (2008) thoroughly discuss the theories of how emotions came to be. The overall conclusion is that emotions did not inadvertently occur, but instead were specifically designed and evolved to solve distinct issues that would affect the probability of fitness. Emotions evolved to utilize physical responses based on environmental cues in order to promote the individual’s overall success.

I can see a young and confident man hovering proud amongst the powdered white lines on the grass. His sweat soaked body and open wounds are merely trophies on display for the witnesses of the battle just fought. This is where Amy Cuddy’s speech time warps me to as she discusses the history of the power pose. It is so easy to compare my competitive young self with these facts Amy shares. I would say that there is an undeniable truth that our non-verbal body language will stimulate others into forming judgements and opinions, or even share similar emotions.

As most of us know, Charles Darwin is known as the father of the theory of evolution. Darwin not only advanced our understanding of nature in the fields of science and biology, he also made a huge contribution to the field of psychology in his book entitled “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”. In it he argued that organisms develop the ability to express emotion as an adaptation to enhance their skills at surviving (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2014). In essence what Darwin was trying to explain is that emotions play a crucial role in our survival. Emotions allow us to feel love and compassion with the end result being reproduction. The emotion of fear urges us to avoid threats and danger. It is also the demonstration of these emotions that assist us in communicating our needs or intentions. As Darwin put it “...emotional displays serve the important function of informing other organisms about an individual’s internal state” (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2014). For an example a rattlesnake in a state of anxiety will rattle its tail as a warning to tell others to retreat or he will strike. Charles Darwin’s evolutionary stand point on the expression of emotions is a thorough and multifaceted study.

Firstly, the concept I found most beneficial is affect displays. Affect displays is a communication action that uses gesture such as hands movement, shaky hands due to nervousness, or startle by shock. The uses of gesture communicate of one person emotions to its audience. For an example, Floyd stated ‘You probably know people who wring their hands when they’re nervous or cover their mouth with their hands when they’re surprised. Those are both affect displays because they coincide with particular emotions’ (Floyd, 2014). It follows that when one demonstrate the notion of affect displays as communicating is expressing emotion through their physical motion. For this reason

The complexity of human emotions has been an unsolvable conundrum that has plagued the minds of philosophers for hundreds of years. In fact, to this day, philosophers still feverishly debate the various components of emotions. Whether it is the origins of emotions or the effect on the human body that emotions have, actual facts and proven theories about emotions are impossible to one hundred percent be verified. One emotion that is particularly complex and powerful is the emotion of fear. For example, there are times when an individual is totally paralyzed and unable to move purely because of the fact that the individual

I chose to respond to this essay topic because psychology is based on observations. I find it fascinating to people watch. There is a reason for every gesture your body makes. A sound, picture, memory, person, etc. can trigger you to respond using your facial and body expressions.

Professor Jennings spent her time in class with us discussing how actors use expression as they perform. She explored both the concept of using body positioning and expression as a drive for emotion, as well as using emotion as a means of driving expressive. Either is useful when used in congruence with the other, but Professor Jennings emphasized that the most important part of both of these methods of acting is the communication to the audience what she is feeling/attempting to express. This component of emotional connection is what makes acting so unique as a trade. The idea of communicating through emotion lends itself to the idea that emotion is a positive force because it allows us to connect to one another.

For centuries psychologists and scientists have debated whether there was a nurture versus nature aspect in how humans developed their ability to express emotion. A person’s capability to express emotion is thought to develop with your personality from birth to five years of age but others believe that a person’s genetic makeup forms your ability to show emotion. Scientists, especially neuroscientists study the relationship between the expression of emotion, neural

Paul Ekman was born in 1934 and at age 14 his mother committed suicide after suffering from severe bi-polar disorder. At that point, he decided he wanted to study facial expressions of emotion in order to assist other people before such tragic outcomes occurred. By the time he was 15, he had enrolled in University of Chicago and became interested in group therapy. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1954 and in 1958 he had earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Adelphi University. His Master’s thesis was about the study of facial expressions and body movement. From 1960 to 2004 he worked at the University of California and starting in 1963 he received continual research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health for 40 years to study nonverbal behavior.