We’re Happy, we smile 😀 We’re Surprised we go: 😯 We’re Angry we go: 😠
Why is it that we have the same physical reactions to emotions as humains, is it something physical, something coded in us, because, no matter where a person is born even if we don’t understand each other, we still react the same ways
We actually don’t have the same emotional expressions. The early studies on “universal” emotional expressions (joy, disgust etc) were extremely biased. The researches paid western actors to make facial expressions, took pictures of those expressions, then showed those pictures to various uncontacted / low contact tribes. However, the researches tended to ask the tribes what expression they saw repeatedly until they gave the answer the researches expected.
Even smiling isn’t universal. Think about cultural differences between smiling even in modern day Russia. There’s evidence that smiling might have been an expression of joy but was deemed socially inappropriate in Ancient Rome.
Emotional expressions in the brain differ between individuals and even differ within the same individual on separate occasions of the “same” emotion. Lisa Barrett has an excellent book on this topic: How Emotions are Made.
Smiling has been denigrated in lots of cultures but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a natural reflex. What it means is that the stuffy Roman aristocracy who left all the written records behind considered it undignified and beneath them - a sign of being common. Other cultures think smiling makes you look like an idiot. But even these cultures have an opinion about smiling so it seems to be present even though the culture works against it. This in fact suggests it is innately wired and not culturally learned.
What do you mean “cultural differences between smiling even in modern day Russia”?
western cultures use smiling to show friendliness and availability, etc. Russians feel it makes you look like an idiot, unsophisticated, childish, etc. Picture ‘keeping it gangster’, thats their world. it’s rough and dangerous and tragic.
What? No… Where you even get that idea
I disagree with your conclusion. Sounds like a big generalizing leap from a study with clearly flawed methodology. If the tribes were low contact, couldn’t the repeated questioning have more to do with them not understanding what was being asked if them, rather than the facial expressions? Was there any effort to demonstrate that they were already effective at putting emotions into words? Doing a bad study doesnt mean the opposite is true. It means you have no info.
Emotions are part of being human, and we express those emotions in similar subtle ways. We also have cultural components, but that doesn’t mean there’s no universal. Americans think smiling happens with the mouth, but other cultures wouldn’t recognize joy from a smiling mouth.
You recognize it from the eyes. That’s something any culture will recognize.
This was a very brief explanation of many studies looking into this exact problem. The conclusion is from their research, not mine. You’re also making my point, that expressions of joy, happiness etc vary between cultures. This article talks about some of the research but I recommend reading the original studies or Barrett’s book.
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