Paul Ekman Research Paper

The influential Paul Ekman is known best for his contributions to the field of psychology, in regards to the study and research of evolution of emotions and facial expressions across time and cultures. Ekman was born on February 15, 1934, in Washington D.C, where he would be the second child to his jewish family (Hunter). His parents were an attorney and pediatrician who lived in New Jersey for most of his life, but Ekman continued to move to other locations in the United States throughout his lifetime, including California, New York, Chicago and more (Contributions). In his teenage years, his mother began to succumb to her severe mental illness, sparking his interest in beginning a career in the scientific community in order

Pavlov’s discovery of classical conditioning was a complete accident (Hock, 2009, p. 66). Pavlov was doing physiology research with salvation’s role with digestion when he discovered classical conditioning. In his research, he had dogs with their salvation glands redirected to their cheek in order to test the amount of saliva produced when presented with different foods. Pavlov then noticed that the dogs would salivate before they even got the food. He then discovered that the dogs had associated the worker’s footsteps with the food. So, when the dogs hear the footsteps they know that food is on the way so they begin to salivate.

Another of the key players in the development of the behaviorist theory and, like Watson, most known for his work in classical conditioning is Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). In fact, Pavlov is famed for first introducing classical conditioning in 1903. Pavlov's most famous experiment where he demonstrated classical conditioning involved a dog, food, and a bell. "Before conditioning, ringing the bell caused no response from the dog. Placing food in front of the dog initiated salivation. During conditioning, the bell was rung a few seconds before the dog was presented with food. After conditioning, the ringing of the bell alone produced saliva" (Dembo, 1994).

Psychology has remained a progressive science due to the many contributions of influential leaders. In this paper I will mention three historical figures who I believe were important in the development of the field of psychology in the past and till this day. Paul Ekman is an American psychologist who became a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was born in 1934, Washington D.C., he graduated with a Ph. D in clinical psychology from the Adelphi University. Following his work in clinical psychology, he became a consultant in the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. Ekman is known as the “human lie detector” due to his expertise in the physiology of emotion, his ability to detect deception and his

This study was about all of our emotions and how they compare to different cultures. Paul Ekman and Friesen did this study to prove that emotions are the same across many cultures. They looked closely at the cultures that have been isolated from the Western and Eastern cultures. They chose the tribe South Fore, they are a group in New Guinea who have existed as a Stone Age Society. This tribe has had very minimal communication with the Western Culture and only see emotions from their own tribe people. Ekman and Friesen chose people from the Fore group that did not speak English or Pidgin, never worked as a Westerner, and never lived in the Western communities. They chose 189 adults and 130 children while also choosing 23 adults who had experienced what the Western society was all about. They presented these individuals with brief stories and three facial expressions to match with the stories. The participants had to choose the facial expression that fits best according to the story they just read. Ekman and Friesen discovered that there were no significant differences between the Fore group and the Westernized group. They both mainly chose the same emotions for each story. The children

Ekman himself has contributed large amounts of innovative information in the world of psychology, but rather than look at how he contributed, let us first see who contributed and influenced his ideas throughout the many years of psychology.

1904 Nobel Prize Winner, Ivan Pavlov was born in Ryazan, Russia on September 14, 1849. Pavlov is best known for his intricate workings with the drooling dog experiment that lead to his further research in conditioning. This experiment, which began in 1889, had an influence on the development of physiologically oriented behaviorist theories of psychology in the early years of the nineteenth century. His work on the physiology of the digestive glands won him the 1904 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

Paul Ekman was a man of psychological influence that continues to reflect in the world of psychology today. His ideas of basic emotions, such as happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust combined with contempt have not only been investigated by him, but also the psychologists following in his footsteps (Ekman 1992).

Pavlov is famous for his “Pavlov's dogs” experiment. He would sound a bell just before the dogs were fed. Eventually, the dogs would begin to salivate at just the sound of the bell. This illustrates the theory of classical conditioning.

Psychology has remain a progressive science due to the many contributions of influential leaders. In this paper I will mention three historical figures who I believe were important in the development of the field of psychology in the past and till this day. Paul Ekman is an American psychologist who became a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was born in 1934, Washington D.C., he graduated with a Ph. D in clinical psychology from the Adelphi University. Following his work in clinical psychology he became a consultant in the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. Ekman is known as the “human lie detector” due to his expertise in the physiology of emotion, his ability to detect

Paul Ekman, who is the world’s leading expert on facial expressions, learned that smiles are “cross-cultural” and have the identical meaning in diverse cultures. A smile is also one of the most basic, physically identical expressions of all mankind. Ekman discovered in studies he led in Papua New Guinea that members of the Fore tribe (who are entirely detached from Western culture and are also known for their extraordinary cannibalism beliefs) recognized smiles to images of situations in the same way we would. Smiling is not just a worldwide method of communicating; it’s also a frequent one. According to studies; more than 30% of Americans smile more than twenty times a day and less than 14% of Americans smile less than five times a day. Those

Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov was a historic theorist who had a huge impact on psychology in the past. His findings are still used in current time. Did you know his middle name means Logic, Masculine, Active or Leadership? He lived up to his name with many smart ideas that helped us see conditioning differently. He was born in September of 1849 in the city of Ryazan, Russia. He was the son of a priest and he went to the first ever church school. He was born into a very big family and was raised in a very poor poverty type of situation. But the difficulties growing up with these issues or conditions could not prevent the blossoming of his curiosity. As a very intelligent young man, he showed a passion and interest for research.

If you were to pull a random individual off the street and ask them to tell you about Pavlov and his dogs, there is a fair chance he or she would be able to give you, at the very least, a basic explanation of how the canines learned to salivate at the sound of a bell. Ivan Pavlov’s experiment has found its way into the cultural lexicon and is often referenced, but those outside of the field of psychology probably are not as familiar with the technical term assigned to Pavlov’s method: classical conditioning. This basic learning method has become very important to the study of behaviorism and learning processes, laying the groundwork for more complex studies in the years since Pavlov’s initial discovery.

The process that Pavlov utilized is quite interesting, as he would take a stimulus that caused a reaction or reflex already and combine it with another gadget that did not provide the same feedback. Since food was the stimulus that caused dogs to salivate already, the food was known as the unconditioned stimulus while the salivation was deemed the unconditioned response. The fork that he would ring would become the conditioned stimulus since that is what he was basically programming the dog’s salivation to react with, but until it is official it is known as the neutral stimulus. Before the conditioning process, the food alone would cause the dog to salivate yet the ringing of the fork would not. Pavlov would then combine the ringing of the fork and the food during the actual conditioning process in order to instill the ringing as a stimulus for salivation. Once the entire conditioning process was officially completed, Pavlov had the ability to only ring the fork to cause the dog to salivate rather than needing the food along with it. This result proved that he had successfully register a new stimulus within the dog that it could not control after having combined both the unconditioned stimulus and the now conditioned stimulus: “Once the neutral stimulus has become associated with the unconditioned stimulus, it becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS). The conditioned response (CR) is the response to the conditioned stimulus” (“Pavlov’s Dogs”). It is a rather quite depressing thought that human infants were trained and programmed in a

Ivan Pavlov is a Russian physiologist. He is well-known for his behaviorism and psychosocial experiments in the psychology society. In 1883, he earned his Doctorate Degree in Medicine at the Academy of Medical Surgery, University of St. Petersburg (Palmes, 2000). “After performing further studies in Germany, he was appointed to the University of Petersburg, which he held until 1925” (Palmes, 2000, p. 69). He experimented conditioned reflex on dogs, which later became a famous and useful experiment in psychology, known as classical conditioning. After the experiment, he continued studying in behaviorism, and made an extension in psychopathology. “During his outstanding scientific career, Pavlov received continuous world acclaim and recognition,” (Palmes, 2000, p. 70) and won a Nobel prize in medicine for his studies in 1904.