What is emotional expression?

Introduction

The study of human emotion is a complex endeavor. It is complex in part because emotion is not a single event or process but is, instead, a collection of discrete events and processes. Humans experience a vast array of emotions, and each of those emotions consists of several components—the physiological changes that occur, the nonverbal communication of the emotion, and the subjective or felt experience. The topic of emotional communication or expression includes two related aspects: encoding (the expression of emotion) and decoding (the perception and reading of cues that signify an emotion).

Nonverbal forms of expression play an integral role in the complex human communication system. Examples of emotional expression by nonverbal means are easy to find. For example, if irritated, people may tense their bodies, press their lips together, and gesture with their eyebrows. With an averted glance or a prolonged stare, a person can communicate intimacy, anger, submission, or dominance.

In his now-classic 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin
argues that many nonverbal communication patterns, specifically emotional expressions, are inherited and that they evolved because they had survival value. He focuses primarily on the expression of emotion through specific changes in the appearance of the face and argues that the primary function of emotional expression is to inform others about one’s internal state and, therefore, to inform them of how one is likely to behave. For example, when enraged, individuals commonly grimace and bare their teeth; the observer’s perception of that anger suggests that the individual may behave aggressively. Frequently, such an expression (and the appropriate perception on the part of the target) results in the retreat of the target, thus avoiding an actual fight. For social animals who live in groups, such as humans, this rapid communication of internal states is highly adaptive.

The Universal and the Specific

If emotional expressions are a product of evolution and are, therefore, shared by all members of the species, their production and their interpretation should be universal. Cross-cultural research supports the universality of certain facial expressions. People in various cultures agree on how to convey a given emotion and how to convey it most intensely. The universal expression of anger, for example, involves a flushed face, brows lowered and drawn together, flared nostrils, a clenched jaw, and bared teeth. Several researchers have also shown that people from a variety of countries, including the United States, Japan, Brazil, and others, as well as people from several preliterate tribal groups who have had no previous contact with the Western world, have little difficulty identifying the emotions of happiness, anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and surprise, as exhibited in photographs or videotapes of members of their own cultures and of other cultures. Thus, both the encoding and decoding of certain emotional expressions are the same for people all over the world, regardless of culture, language, or educational background.

This universality, however, does not preclude the possibility that certain aspects of emotional expression may be learned. In fact, strong cultural (learned) differences can be found in the intensity and frequency with which certain emotions are expressed and in the situations that elicit certain emotions. For example, in cultures that encourage individuality, as in Western Europe and North America, emotional displays are often intense and prolonged. People express their emotions openly. In Asian and other cultures that emphasize social connections and interdependence, emotions such as sympathy, respect, and shame are more common than in the West, and people in such cultures rarely, and then only briefly, display negative emotions that might disrupt a peaceful group environment. Additional evidence for the role of learning in emotional expression is provided by research suggesting that women express emotions more intensely than men, who tend to hide their expressions to some degree.

People of different cultures also vary in their use of certain other forms of nonverbal cues to express emotion. That is, individual cultures have developed additional signals of emotion that are shared only within those cultures. For example, the psychologist Otto Klineberg
reported in 1938 that Chinese literature was filled with examples of emotional expression that would easily be misunderstood by members of the Western world. Such examples include clapping one’s hands when worried or disappointed, sticking out one’s tongue to express surprise, and scratching one’s ears and cheeks to express happiness.

Decoding Expressions

The human ability to decode or interpret emotional expressions is, like the expression itself, also partly learned. Evidence for this can be found in the reactions of infants to novel situations and novel toys. Under such circumstances, infants frequently check their mother’s facial expressions before approaching or avoiding the novel toy. If she looks happy or relaxed, the infant generally will approach; if she looks frightened, the infant will try to avoid the new situation or will approach the mother. Additional support is found in research that suggests that women are generally better at detecting emotional undercurrents and at detecting emotion from visual information only (such as facial expressions presented in pictures or in silent films) than men are. Such individual differences are probably the result of gender socialization, with girls socialized to be more sensitive to the feelings of others.

The term facial expression is commonly defined as a motor response resulting from an emotional state. That is, the facial expression is believed to be a consequence of the emotion. This is the position implied by most of the theory and research in the area. Yet with regard to the role of the expressive component in the experience of emotion, there is another possibility. Some researchers have suggested that facial expressions not only communicate but also regulate emotion. For example, Darwin wrote that “the free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. . . . On the other hand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs, softens our emotions.” This statement clearly suggests that the outward expression of emotion can either amplify or attenuate the intensity of the emotional experience. Support for this hypothesis is now readily available.

Fine-Tuning Interpretation

As more is learned about the subtle changes in facial expression and body movements that are associated with specific emotions, the behavior of individuals in specific situations may be interpreted more accurately. For example, therapists can observe more closely the facial expression changes in their patients, thereby gaining access to emotional reactions that their patients may not discuss openly.

Several researchers have already reported that close scrutiny of changes in facial expression among patients during interviews supports the notion that many expression changes occur too quickly for easy detection. E. A. Haggard and F. S. Isaacs, for example, while searching for indications of nonverbal communication between therapist and patient, ran filmed interactions at slow motion and noticed that the expression of the patient’s face sometimes changed dramatically within a few frames of the film. These changes were not observable when the film was run at regular speed. Furthermore, these subtle changes appeared to take place at key points during the interview. For example, although the patient’s detectable expression included a smile when discussing a “friend,” closer inspection of the film suggested that the patient actually exhibited the subtle facial changes associated with the expression of anger during the conversation. These “micromomentary” expressions are believed to reveal actual emotional states that are condensed in time because of repression.

Advanced technology allows researchers to measure subtle facial changes in other ways as well. For example, when a person is given mild emotional stimuli, electrodes attached to facial muscles can detect hidden reactions. Thus, although a person’s face might not look any different, voltage changes on the skin may reveal micromuscular smiles or frowns underneath; perhaps this procedure will even result in a new approach to lie detection.

In addition to the work being done to develop an understanding of the normal but subtle changes associated with various emotions under normal circumstances, several researchers have looked at how emotional expressions change under abnormal circumstances. For example, the weightlessness experienced by astronauts results in the movement of body fluids toward the upper body, causing their faces to become puffy. Under these circumstances, a reliance on facial expressions for emotional information might increase the risk of misunderstanding. Thus, a full understanding of such changes is necessary for individuals likely to find themselves in such situations.

Nonverbal forms of emotional communication also play an important role in the normal development of the human infant. For example, the facial expressions of both infants and caregivers are important in the development of the attachment relationship. That is, the facial expressions of infants indicate to caregivers the infants’ emotional states. Infants’ expressions tell much about how they are “feeling” and thus allow adults to respond appropriately. Furthermore, the early signs of emotional expression in infants are events that clearly contribute to the development of the relationship between infant and caregiver. For example, the infant’s first smile is typically interpreted in a personal way by the caregiver and is responded to with a returned smile and increased interaction on the part of the caregiver, thus resulting in a positive interaction sequence. Evidence of the first smile also leads to increased attempts by the caregiver to elicit smiling at other times, thus giving the caregiver a new topic with which to engage the infant in social interaction.

Body Language Through Time

Throughout history, humankind has acknowledged the existence of discrete emotions and has exhibited acceptance and understanding of the public aspect of emotions—the expressive movements that characterize each individual emotion. For example, sad (tragic) and happy (comic) facial masks were worn by actors during ancient times to portray the emotional tone of their characters and were correctly perceived by audiences. Similarly, today, in the theater and in everyday life, people accept the notion that the face has a real and definite function in communicating feelings or emotions; people automatically search the face of the speaker, studying facial expressions, to understand more fully what is being communicated in any interpersonal interaction.

Several well-known scientists of the nineteenth century and early scientific psychologists of the twentieth century acknowledged the importance of emotion and emotional expression. It was during the late nineteenth century that Darwin paved the way for theory and research on the facial patterns in emotion. In the early twentieth century, Wilhelm Wundt, the father of psychology, assumed that the face was the chief means of emotional expression. Thus the topic of emotion was considered a topic worthy of scientific investigation during the early years of psychology.

When behaviorism took over as the dominant psychological theory of the twentieth century, however, emotion, as well as all other topics that included “subjective” components, was forced out of the laboratory and out of the range of scientific study. During psychology’s period of strong behavioristic orientation (the 1930s through the 1950s), most general theories of behavior and most major personality theories ignored emotion altogether or dealt with it only as a vague, global entity or process of little importance. There was very little scientific investigation into the existence of separate emotions, and therefore there was very little attention paid to the existence of discrete facial patterns for the communication of emotion. This overall lack of interest in facial patterns by behavioral scientists had little influence on common wisdom; people in general have maintained the age-old position that the patterns exist and that they have specific emotional significance.

As theories of emotion began to appear in the scientific literature, and as the potential importance of emotional expressions was considered, the question of innate versus learned facial patterns of emotional expression was addressed. For a substantial period of time, the dominant view was that there were no invariable patterns of expression. It was not until publication of the work of Silvan Tomkins, Carroll Izard, Paul Ekman, and other investigators during the 1960s that conclusive evidence for the existence of universal facial patterns in emotional expression was provided, confirming for science what people have always known. Since then, significant advances have been made in understanding the facial musculature changes associated with the expression of individual emotions and in understanding the development of the ability to interpret those facial musculature changes. It is, moreover, likely that significant advances will continue to be made in the identification of subtle changes in emotional expression and in understanding the important role of such facial patterns in interpersonal communication.

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