a friend of mine was told is sociology that facial reactions to events are the result of socialization. i was under the impression that they are instinctual but i realized that i know of no proof other than opinion for these statements. that said, can a culture teach a child to frown when happy and smile when sad?
does anyone know anymore about this?
a friend of mine was told is sociology that facial reactions to events are the result of socialization. i was under the impression that they are instinctual but i realized that i know of no proof other than opinion for these statements. that said, can a culture teach a child to frown when happy and smile when sad?
does anyone know anymore about this?
There was a study on UK tv that covered this. Facial expressions exist in very young children before they get a chance to ‘learn’ them from anyone. Most of the expressions we have are instinctive.
No, of course not. Infants display most of the universal basic expressions in response to the same type of stimulus. Likewise, adults in all cultures display the basic ones as well as more complex ones in response to similar stimuli. That is what is taught in Sociology and Psychology 101. I watched a very vivid video of this in my Psychology 101 class showing people of different cultures showing the same facial expressions in response to a similar stimulus. I will try to find it online.
Your friend is very, very wrong and probably under the delusion that everything can be socialized.
Paul Ekman (among others) has done a lot of research that suggests that a certain set of facial expressions are instinctual and don’t vary much across culture (happy, sad, fearful, angry, surprised, disgusted). Even children who are blind from birth exhibit them pretty much the same way as everyone else.
However, he also discovered some cultural differences in the social display of emotion by adults. The only one I can think of offhand was that Japanese people tended to keep a more neutral expression when they thought they were being observed than when they thought they were alone. Americans didn’t vary as much across situations. (The people in the experiment were being observed as they watched either pleasant or unpleasant images on a tv screen.)
ah yes, being blind. that one slipped my mind. my and my friend were both skeptical of this information. the professor seems to believe that humans have few instincts and most behavior is due to culture, however, you would expect that from a sociology professor.
thanks for the replies.
I saw a documentary once that did a bit of exploring on this issue. A British team went very very deep into the jungles of New Guinea until they found a tribe that had had nearly no contact with the outside world. As you could see on the film, there were some gestures we could immediately recognize - they nodded for “yes”, smiled when happy, laughed when amused, etc. But at one point, they had to count on their fingers. It started off familiarly enough - one through five were counted on their fingers. But then “six” was indicated by a finger on the wrist, “seven” was indicated by a finger a little higher up on the forearm, and so on, until “eleven” was a finger on the shoulder. Completely unfamiliar to those of us not raised with that system.
When I was just a wee tyke I remember hearing about some culture where nodding the head up and down meant “no” and shaking it from side to side was a “yes.” Anyone else have any knowledge about this, or is it one more case of a gullible kid being whooshed?
Those aren’t facial expressions. Similarly, a Japanese will point to his nose to indicate “me?” whereas most westerners will point to their chests. Again, not facial expressions.
We share a lot of facial expressions with chimpanzees. Those probably aren’t socialized.
I have a hard time seeing how anyone could believe this unless they’ve never come in contact with somebody from another culture.
This thread was accidentally started twice. I have merged the two copies.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
I’ve got a friend from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and her father is absolutely the most stonefaced man I’ve ever met. He has a completely neutral facial expression at all times. My frend assures me that this is a cultural thing, and that he doesn’t hate me. She also says that when he finds something deeply funny and is with only male family members, he’s been known to crack a smile. Once, when he didn’t know she was around, she saw a single tear when her brother was killed by revolutionaries.
So, anecdotaly, I think the basic facial expressions are the same - the culturalization is when it is appropriate to express them.
Just saw a special with Julia Roberts running around with a nomad mongolian tribe. At one point she winked at one of the fellows and they had a hell of a time trying to emulate her. They wound up giving up and instead opened and closed their forefinger and thumb as a sign of winking back.
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So, with the finger winking thing because they didnt have the muscle memory to just close one eye…
The vulcan hand thingy, how come so many people seem to have trouble with it? seens to me that I can see the use the other hand to separate the fingers once, but then shouldt you be able to remember what muscles moved what way and do it? everybody I know can do it…but we are split fairly normally between people who can wiggle their ears or not, and people who can roll their tongues vs ripple the tongues [roller of tongues here=)]
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My understanding is this is the traditional Bulgarian expression of yes and no.