Abstrak:
Makala berikut ini membicarakan masalah bahasa nonverbal pada anak yang
diekspresikan terutama lewat wajah mereka. Perdebatan tentang apakah bahasa nonverbal
pada anak merupakan suatu ekspresi yang sifatnya alami atau bentukan dari kehidupan
anak setelah lahir, dapat ditelusuri mulai sejak Darwin. Pembahasan mengenai masalah
ini mengetengahkan bagaimana binatang (sebagai pembanding), bayi dan anak-anak
mengembangkan komunikasi ekspresi wajah mereka. Namun demikian sampai sekarang
nampaknya belum ada jawaban yang pasti dari hasil temuan ini.
CHILDREN’S NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR:
THE NATURE AND NURTURE OF FACIAL EXPRESSION
By: Esther Kuntjata
Petra Christian University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
Introduction
Studies in linguistics, language development, and language communication have
mostly been concerned with how verbal language is used in communication. Studies in
first and second language acquisition discuss more in the acquisition of verbal language
in children and second language learners. Furthermore many studies in child language
acquisition have by far been more intensively conducted in exploring children’s verbal
language development and less in their nonverbal development. Yet we know that before
children learn to talk they have learned to communicate with their arms, their faces and
their entire bodies. Julius Fast in his book Body Language maintains that children rely
heavily on their bodies in discovering the world around them. With their touch they can
learn joy, security, feelings of hot, cold, smooth and scratchy. (1970, pp.79-80) As
children grow older and become adept in their verbal ability, Barbara Wood (1976,
p.182) argues, that we assume they rely less and less on nonverbal communication. She
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maintains, however, that the fact that children become more verbal should not suggest to
us that nonverbal channels of communication become either nonexistent or unimportant.
On the contrary, even as adult speakers, we are constantly engage in body motion
communication some way or another.
Another interesting pursue on the studies of language is the notion of the nature
and nurture of language use in human lives. The nature refers to the possibility that all
humans have the innate knowledge about language, while the nurture refers to the
possibility that language development is inspired and conditioned by the environment and
human social interaction. This notion has led many linguistic researchers to explore the
ways young children acquire their language, including their nonverbal language, such as
what have been done by the behaviorists, the innatists, and the cognitivists.
This paper will try to probe the studies of children’s nonverbal communication
that have been conducted so far, while looking for some answers as to how far the nature
and nurture of nonverbal language use can be traced in the development of nonverbal
language in human especially in infants and children. Like the studies done in verbal
language development, linguists have so far been pulling back and forth in this
continuum of nature and nurture, I believe that such notion can also be found in
nonverbal development as well. Hence this study of human’s nonverbal communication
may give some light to this issue and open for some further investigation in this topic.
Researches on the nature and nurture of nonverbal communication have drawn
my attention to the studies of emotion in children’s early lives. The earliest literature on
this topic can be traced back in the study of emotion and facial expression by Charles
Darwin in his book The expression of the emotions in man and animals that he wrote in
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1872. Paul Harris (1989) recounts Darwin’s book by stating that Darwin was first struck
by the similarity in the facial expressions of various nations. Darwin argued that there
must be an innate, universal basis to human’s emotional expressions. With this
hypothesis he studied his own son who was then over six months old. Here is what Harris
quotes from Darwin’s experiment:
His nurse pretended to cry, and I saw that his face instantly assumed a melancholy
expression, with the corners of the mouth strongly depressed; now this child could
rarely have seen any other child crying, and never a grown up person crying, and I
doubt at so early an age he could have reasoned on the subject. Therefore it seems
to me that an innate feeling must have told him that the pretended crying of his
nurse expressed grief; and this through the instinct of sympathy excited grief in
him. (Harris, 1989, p.6)
Besides suggesting that human may have been provided with an innate feeling, Darwin
also argued that there is a possibility that nature has also equipped the infant with
foreknowledge of how to interprete some particular expression. Hence, Darwin made two
claims here. First he argued that human beings have a universal, innate repertoire of
discrete facial expressions. Second, such expressions are endowed with meaning for the
infant by an innate recognition devise.(p.25) Darwin also claimed that we cannot
understand human emotional expression without understanding the emotional expressions
of animals. Here his argument was based on his theory of evolution and his studies were
conducted on infants, children, adults from various cultures, the mentally ill, and in
animals.
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Among the present day followers of Darwin’s claims is Paul Ekman. In
commemorating Darwin’s one hundred year of his book, Ekman published an edited
book entitled Darwin and facial expression in 1973. Together with other researchers he
review a century of studies on facial expression that had been conducted since Darwin.
Overall Ekman et.al. still believed that Darwin’s work of 1872 was still the most
encompassing work on this subject.
Since the earliest issue on nonverbal communication has been concentrated on the
facial expression of emotion, in this paper I will be discussing three major topics on the
facial expression of nonverbal communication in which the nature-nurture of language
development has been disputed, i.e. Facial expression of emotion in nonhuman primates
as compared to human’s; facial expressions of infant and children; and social factors in
facial expression. By probing these three major subjects that have been discussed by
some major researchers in the studies of nonverbal communication I hope I can see the
early development of nonverbal communication and see how far the nature-nurture side
of it has been investigated.
Facial expression in nonhuman primates
Since Darwin, people have been obsessed to see how far human beings share
some similarities with their so called “ancestors.” This has led many researchers to study
the lives of primates that may disclose any similarities with the lives of human.
Chevalier-Skolnikoff in Ekman (1973) discussed the evolution of the nervous system that
is related to facial expressions in different species. Her finding shows that there are
differences in the brain of the primates and of human. She argues that these differences
5
may be responsible for human facial expressions being more subject to voluntary or
habitual control than are those of other animals.
Chevalier-Skolnikoff’s studied the facial expressions of some primates that are
influenced by external factors like social stimuli from other animals within the social
group and environmental factors like day or night, warm or cold, rainy or dry and other
situations; and internal factors like the hormones, the nervous system, and the muscular
anatomy. She found that those factors are important determinants that can greatly
influence whether a particular behavior will occur or not. She concluded that “facial
expression cannot be characterized as inherited or “innate.” Only the genes are inherited,
and complex interactions between the organism and its environment are always involved
in the production of any behavior, including facial expression.” (p.49) With regard to
Darwin’s hypothesis of the innateness of facial expression, she stated that:
Special attention should again be directed to the nervous system and the manner
in which it functions in the production of facial expression. Darwin considered
facial expressions of emotion “innate” or determined by heredity rather than
learned because of the stereotyped nature of these behaviors and because of their
universality throughout the races of man. The stereotypy and universality of facial
expressions of emotion are due to their mediation by the basal area of the
forebrain, which produces stereotype behavior, rather than to environmental
immunity. (p.49-50)
Even when Chevalier-Skolnikoff’s explanation of the evolution of facial expression is
still within Darwin’s tradition, her scientific finding on differences in musculature and
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the evolution of the nervous system have expanded the knowledge of how facial
expressions in different species are related and what may be considered as innate.
Another intensive study on the differences of facial expression between animals
and human was conducted by Ross Buck in 1984 and was published in his book entitled
The communication of emotion. He also admits that one of the great contributions in the
study of nonverbal communication is that it has shown how human communication is
based upon and influenced by the same motivational / emotional systems and
fundamental learning experiences as is animal communication.(p.viii) Buck studied on
rhesus monkeys’ emotional behavior particularly the development of affection, fear, and
aggression and compared them to the development in infants. He found that although
affectionate behavior is normally present in the infant monkey virtually from birth, there
is little evidence of aggression and fear. After a few weeks, fearful responses begin to
appear, and by 6 months they are well established (p.126). Meanwhile human infants also
show a similar absence of fearful and aggressive responses during the early months of
life, while affectionate behavior like smiling is shown with both familiar and unfamiliar
adults. By six months, a fear of strangers and distress at separation often appear (p.129).
Buck suggests that there is a maturation of the system underlying fear and aggression,
creating a “critical period” in the early months in which social attachment can easily
occur. He suggests that the evidence in monkeys is analogous to what occurs in humans.
Other studies on primates are presented by Exline (1974) on eye contact in
different primates and Harlows (1971) in tactile stimulation in monkeys. These studies
suggest that behavior in eye contact as found in the primates may be used as a ground
work in the study of human’s eye engagement. His studies concerning the development
7
of eye engagement seem to offer promise for understanding the development of affiliative
and dominance tendencies. From the study of eye contact between man and monkey,
there are some suggestions that response to eye contact may be innate. While Harlows’
studies which show that monkeys clung to cloth “ surrogate mothers” who did not
provide food in preference to wire ones which provided nourishment, seems to show
similarity with children who seek tactile comfort and stimulation (in Buck, 1984, p.122123).
Although the studies on primates’ emotional communication are still limited,
researchers have intensively used the “animal model” of emotional development in trying
to explain human emotion. The overall picture suggests that there are neurochemical
systems underlying emotion that are innately given in primates and human. But there is a
gradual evolution and maturation of the mechanism that is complex enough to provide
human with symbolic communication ability. Thus the animal model represents an
incomplete view of human emotion, due to the emergence of language in human. The
invention of language provides for humans a new and powerful vehicle for the control of
behavior which is functionally independent of its biological roots (Buck, 1984, p.165).
Facial expression in infants and children
The studies of facial expression in infants and children should again owe to
Darwin who then believed that through studying young human infants’ uninhibited
expression they may have the opportunity to see the innateness of human behavior
(Ekman, 1973, p.93). There have been more rigorous studies on facial expression on
8
infants and children since then, although child psychologists might not have the same
purpose as Darwin’s in their studies.
There are six common emotional states which are accompanied by distinctive
facial expressions described by many researchers: happiness, sadness, anger, fear,
surprise, and disgust. Happiness may include affection, smiling and laughing; sadness
includes crying and distress. As children grow older, a wider variety of facial expressions
occurs. So it is during this period that many researchers usually see how emotion
develops and how cognitive factors play important roles.
The earliest study on facial expression by Darwin (in Charlesworth et.al., 1973,
pp.93-102)) is worth reviewing even though the later researchers found Darwin’s study to
be annecdotal rather than systematic. From his observation, Darwin found that affection
was probably arouse very early in life before two months old. Smiles occur as early as 45
days. A pleasurable sensation occurred at about 3 ½ months. Anger was noted in his
infant son when he was four months old. Unpleasurable sensations caused by pain or
hunger were observable at birth. Charlesworth & Kreutzer recount that “for him [Darwin]
the fact that the majority of complex facial expressions observed in adults are already
present in the infant or young child suggested strongly that their acquisition was less
dependent upon learning than it was on the actualization of innate tendency.” (p. 102)
This innate tendency in the facial expressions of infants was discussed by the later
researchers as well. Among the most often cited are Bridges, Ekman, Buck, and DePaulo,
although they are not as simplistic as Darwin because of the more complicated findings
they found in their researches.
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In 1932 Dr. Katherine Bridges studied the development of emotion in infants and
children from birth to two years by keeping records of their daily behavior during
feeding, dressing, bathing, and sleeping. She found that as early as 4 or 5 months of age
babies attended to crying children and by 7 or 8 months they would smile and reach out
to another baby nearby in response to its sound, and by 13 – 14 months laughed and
smiled a lot.(in Jones, 1972, p.273). Her findings here apparently differ from Darwin’s.
Bridges also stated that:
1. The excitement emotion appears first in all infants, regardless of their culture,
home environment, or sex.
2. With maturation, excitement is differentiated into distress and delight, that is,
the one emotion “splits” into the two different and distinct emotions, one
positive and the other negative.
3. With age, each emotion (for instance, delight) splits further, into more specific
emotions; at two years of age, the child is capable of communicating nearly a
dozen different emotions (in Wood, 1976, pp. 193-194).
Her first statement shows that she seemed to agree that some facial expressions are
innate. However, what is considered as innate in the first place is undergoing some
development / maturation to becoming more complicated emotions. Hence, she seems to
believe that once emotions are established in infancy, the form of expressive behaviors
changes little by little over the years and becomes more complex.
Ekman (1973) agrees with Chevalier-Skolnikoff ‘s argument that Darwin’s claim
that facial expressions must be inherited is something that needs to be disputed.
According to Ekman, “universality increases the likelihood that inheritance determines
10
the form and appearance of facial expressions, but it does not prove an innate basis of
facial expression since there are other explanations available.” (p.171). Universality,
Ekman maintains, must be constant, not variable for humankind. Inheritance is one such
source, but other human experiences in their interactions with their environment may be
the source of universal facial expressions too. However, Ekman himself admits that until
then there had been no incontrovertible evidence, free of bias, to settle the question of
universality (p.174).
An interesting distinction on what can be seen as innate and what may be socially
or culturally affected is given by Ross Buck (1984) under the terms spontaneous and
symbolic communication. Here is the characteristics of the two types of communication
he suggested (p.8):
Characteristics
Spontaneous communication
Symbolic communication
Basis of signal system
Biologically shared
Socially shared
Intentionality
Spontaneous: Communicative behavior
Voluntary: Sender intends to
is an automatic or reflex response.
send a specific message.
Signs: Natural externally visible aspects
Symbols: Arbitrary relationship
of referent.
with referent.
Nonpropositional motivational /
Propositions: Expressions capable
emotional states.
of logical analysis (test of truth or
Elements
Content
falsity)
Cerebral processing
Related to right hemisphere
Related to left hemisphere.
Level of knowledge
Knowledge by acquaintance.
Knowledge by description.
necessary.
______________________________________________________________________________________
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Buck suggests that spontaneous communication (more toward nature) and
symbolic communication (more toward nurture) are not logically related in a simple way,
but they are biologically related in ways that cannot be precisely defined until the
biological systems and their relationship with one another are more fully understood.
(p.11) I believe that this is what makes the results of the researches that have been carried
out so far so various and so difficult to conclude because the biological system and the
relationship have not yet been fully understood. Buck also discussed the ritualization,
similar to Bridges’ maturation, i.e. the process by which displays of behavior patterns
evolve. The ritualization is often accompanied by the evolution of physical characteristics
that serve to increase the accessibility of the display. Buck then argues that if human
facial expression evolved for this reason, then the basic facial expressions of emotion
must be universal to the human species (pp. 36-37).
Similar notion on the universality of facial expression is also suggested by
DePaulo (1991). She argues that when certain basic emotions such as happiness, sadness,
fear, anger, and surprise are elicited, such non-verbal behaviors are difficult to produce at
will, even for adults (pp. 352-353). One example is one’s facial expression when the
person is afraid. The raising and pulling together of the eyebrows cannot be produced
deliberately, “there are constraints on people’s abilities to feign fear successfully, and
most adults are just as disadvantaged in this respect as are children."(p. 356). In
conjunction with human’s spontaneous expressiveness, she maintains that the links
between internal states and overt expressions seem to be strong, therefore it is not easy to
work against one’s internal states by expressing something at odds with his/her internal
states. Like Bridges and Buck, DePaulo also looks at the developmental changes in
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human’s spontaneous expressiveness. In infancy, expressiveness is conceptualized as an
uninhibited style of behaving. For preschoolers, there are striking individual differences
in the accuracy of their spontaneous expressions. Following Buck’s finding, DePaulo
admits that preschoolers’ spontaneous facial expressions typically convey the relevant
affect at the level that is just slightly better than chance. By first grade, the accuracy is
above chance, although certain internal states other than the basic emotions can still be
read accurately from children’s spontaneous expressions. She concludes that
“spontaneous expressiveness may follow a curvilinear path.” It is during the preschool
years and later adulthood years the correspondence between internal states and their
spontaneous nonverbal expression may be somewhat confused. There may be a process
of deliberately regulating one’s facial expression (pp.373-375).
Studies in facial expressions were not only carried out in noticing infants’ facial
expression, but that infant behavior also includes the infant’s ability to recognize
emotional expression like Darwin also claimed. He stated that to a certain extend at an
early age, for example his 6-month-old son, would understand a compassionate
expression and would respond in an appropriate way. When his nurse pretended to cry,
the baby showed a melancholy expression. Thus it also led him to conclude that babies
not only produce facial expressions on an innate basis, but also recognize and react to
them on an innate basis as well (Harris, 1989, p.14). This finding was in fact supported
by other researchers like Buhler (1930) who reported that from five months and possibly
earlier the infant will respond appropriately to different facial expressions, especially if
these expressions are accompanied by variations in tone and voice (in Harris, 1989, p.18).
More recent researchers, Haviland and Lelwica (1987) filmed mothers making dialogues
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with their ten-week-old babies by adopting the appropriate facial expression and talked in
the relevant tone of voice. The babies can clearly distinguished three emotions,
happiness, sadness, or anger, in their reactions. This evidence seems to support Darwin’s
claims that babies recognize and respond to the meaning of caretaker’s expression.
The ability of infants to recognize emotional expression of other people has also
undergone some heated debate. Charlesworth & Kreutzer (1973, p.120) acknowledged
that research in this area was so difficult. They maintain that relatively little has been
done to determine the nature of stimuli that play a major role in the infant’s world.
Watson, the behaviorist, for instance claimed that smiling can be elicited immediately
after birth by tickling, shaking, and patting.(p.107) Thus emotions are learned. Spitz and
Wolf (1946), however, argue that different expressions on the experimenter’s face or on a
mask were not effective in producing different reactions in the infants. Wood (1976) also
maintains that emotions cannot be explained totally on the basis of conditioning. Studies
of nonverbal communication suggest that the patterns of development are so stable across
cultural groups of children that aspects of body language may be preprogrammed in the
child’s neurological system. Hence different argument on this topic is difficult to reach a
firm conclusion.
Some researchers argue that the difficulty in achieving a firm answer to how
facial expressions are processed and displayed were due to the methodological problems.
Charlesworth and Kreutzer for instance admit that expressive behavior of an infant is so
rich that things are not quite simple and orderly. It is often “highly dependent upon
stimulus and subject conditions that it virtually defies any straightforward classification
or interpretation that would allow for easy schematizing of its development.”(1973,
14
p.112) The use of film in judging infant’s emotional states can also make some ambiguity
that it was impossible to rate with any degree of consistency and certainty. The
contextual cues to be included were also very minimum. They argued that the infant’s
inability to tell the observer how he feels or even to express himself fully in nonverbal
ways, other by his facial expressions which in themselves are often inadequate indicators
of his emotions, makes the task of inferring infant emotion and cognition a very difficult
undertaking.(pp.123-124) Buck (1984) who reported using more modern technique like
slide viewing technique for an accuracy in receiving ability also admitted that the pictures
only reveal facial expression from limited angles and a full understanding of nonverbal
receiving ability will require much more expanded study. De Paulo (1991) also admits
the difficulty to ascertain whether particular nonverbal behaviors are acted purposefully
or the result of practise which then become a habit; and to determine when nonverbal
behaviors are motivated by self-presentational goals. The answers to those questions are
still far from definitive.
Social factors in facial expression
The fact that there are a set of facial expressions that are shared by all human
being in many cultures is perhaps the reason why many researchers think that some facial
expressions are innate and universal, since it is highly improbable that so many different
cultures would have developed the same set of learned arbitrary conventions for each
emotion (Ekman et.al, 1974, p.45). Especially with the most studied emotion expression:
smiling, for instance, seems to be the naturalistic occurrence in infants all across cultures.
15
Yet from the studies in the facial expressions and emotion of infants and children many
found that the smile of the infant seems to be social sometime during the second to fourth
month (Charlesworth et.al., 1973, p.106). Darwin himself also noted the possibility that
an infant’s cries, while at first instinctive like smiling, later might become employed as
means of communicating its needs to others (p.98). It suggests that facial expression of
emotion can be altered or developed in situationally specific ways by social learning,
although it is difficult to generalize and come to any certain conclusion about what is
going on in the development and what is considered as socially influenced.
One of the interesting issues concerning the social factors that may have affected
human’s facial expression is the differences of facial expression that is related to gender.
Several studies have analyzed sex differences in expressiveness in young children, with
the hope that such studies will also show the nature-nurture side of sex differences in
facial expression. Darwin for instance observed some gender differences that he thought
was innate, i.e. he noticed that throwing behavior occurred only in his sons but not his
daughter. This led him to conclude that throwing objects might be a tendency inherited
only by boys (in Charlesworth et.al. 1973, p.96). Harlow as reported by Wood (1976,
p.200) examined chimpanzees and their acquisition of gender roles and it suggests that
gender may be inborn. Others found that as boys get older they show less spontaneous
facial/gestural expressiveness. A young boy will respond to anger-inducing situations
with overt aggression. In preschoolers, posing ability increases with age among girls but
decreases among boys. Males appeared to show their discomfort by bodily movements,
females by smiling and laughing (Buck, 1984, pp. 141, 205, 319). Hence according to
Buck, there appears to be qualitative as well as quantitative differences between males
16
and females with regard to the communicativeness of their facial expressions. And males
and more likely than females to express emotion internally (p.245). Manstead (1991,
p.297) examined some researchers’ findings on gender differences within type of
emotional stimulus. He found that females are more expressive than males are in
response to some stimuli but not others. Also that females are more expressive than males
in response to positive (e.g. happy) slides, whereas males are in response to negative (e.g.
injury) slides. Patterson (1991) refers to a sociobiological view that links the sex
differences in nonverbal behavior more closely to a genetic basis:
The behavior of males and females differs because of the selective advantage such
differences offer to the survival of the species. Although most researchers support
the learning interpretation of sex differences in nonverbal behavior, some genetic
component may also be contributing to the contrasting patterns (p. 468).
However, Patterson did not explain further how this genetic component works.
Many other psychologists seem to believe that gender is a learned variable, based
on the child’s experiences with parents and others he/she encounters. Wood argues that
we cannot answer questions on the origin of human gender behavior with monkey studies
(1976, p.200). Buck (1984) suggests sex differences in expressiveness, differential
tendencies to express different emotions, physiological responsiveness and overt
expression in children, are based upon temperament and social learning. Manstead (1991,
p.297) himself maintains that gender differences in spontaneous facial expressiveness
typically observed in adults is not reliably found in infants and children and that there
was no difference between girls’ and boys’ sending accuracy. Hence “the failures to find
reliable gender differences among children suggest that the differences observed in adults
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are acquired relatively late in childhood and may therefore be mediated by sex role
socialization.” Haberstadt (1991) maintains that gender differences need to be
investigated across context. From her studies she found that developmental research on
facial expressiveness indicates very few gender differences in early childhood. Hence it
suggests that such differences emerged after preschool years may be the result of parental
and peer socialization of appropriate gender role behaviors and that children would adopt
them as they learn the rules of their culture (p.133).
A later study by Garner et.al. (1997) confirm that the ways in which children learn
to control the expression of emotion is by modeling their parents’ emotional
expressiveness and by responding to parental attitudes about acceptability of certain
emotional expressions. They show that when girls express more sadness and boys more
anger are related to how parents treat them. For instance, anger responses in girls are
more followed by negative emotional reactions from mothers whereas the anger
responses of boys receive more emphatic maternal reactions. That’s why girls showed
more positive emotion in the play situation than boys, and girls tend to encourage
positive affect and discourage negative affect whereas boys maximize the opportunities
for conflict and negative emotion. In sum, development of sex differences in expression,
especially spontaneous communication still needs to be studied further.
Another difficulty to be considered in coming to a firm conclusion regarding the
communication of emotion is the problem of deception. So far there has been very little
investigation as to the differences between spontaneous expressions and the expressions
the child has just learned to exhibit to disguise its real motives. According to Buck (1984,
p.215), the concept of deception has been conceptualized in most recent research as
18
involving highly intentional dissimulation, in which a sender consciously attempts to
present a false “image” to a receiver who is attempting to detect this deception. Thus it
involves the influence of symbolic rules. When this is applied in the facial expressions of
young children, many researchers found them not easy to distinguish which may be
innate or acquired, deceptive or non-deceptive. DePaulo (1991) suggests that by the age
of 6 or even earlier, children seem to know that people’s expressive behaviors do not
always correspond to their internal states. One reason is that people can deliberately
control their expressive behavior so as to convey misleading impression. She also
suggests that these intricacies of expressive control become more and more sophisticated
between the ages of 6 and 11, then appear to level off (p.365).
What is interesting, however, many researchers learn that one’s effort at
expressive control is not always successful especially with children. Even older children
have difficulty producing facial expressions that are associated with fear, sadness, and
anger. Third grade children still have trouble controlling their facial expressions so as to
convey a false impression (DePaulo, 1991, p.369, 380). However, DePaulo found most of
the researches on expressive control are conducted on adults such as the studies of
successful poker players and experienced salespersons, but no research on the role of
experience in children’s expressive control.
Conclusion
Studies in nonverbal communication, particularly in the facial expressions and the
communication of emotion do not seem to yield firm results. The studies in nonhuman
primates did reveal the differences in the brain system of primates and human, and those
19
differences have been counted as what make human be able to use language and learn.
Here is where the cognitive factors have a major role. Yet, many researchers seem to still
acknowledge Darwin’s notion of the innateness in human communication of emotion,
especially when their studies were conducted on infants.
What has not been confirmed and fully understood is how far the social influence,
or the cognitive factors take place during the period where maturation of the brain in an
infant starts. The difficulty to reach to a firm conclusion may be due to several reasons:
Human brain cannot be easily investigated. Humans are also highly dependent on their
environment, so there are many variables to be considered. Individual differences also
make it difficult to generalize. The use of modern techniques so far have not yielded firm
results either. In my own observation of young children playing, I saw boys and girls use
almost the same facial expressions for certain behaviors like smiling and laughing when
they were happy. A girl cried when her boy friends teased her. An even younger girl
looked moody when she did not want to play with her friends. Their facial expressions
looked so natural and spontaneous just like the children I saw in many other countries.
For the time being, I think we need to accept the idea that there could be something
innate that enables human display facial expressions of emotion and recognize others’
emotion, but each individual has also been richly blessed with abilities to develop them
according to the environment they live in.
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