“Like most psychological events, emotion is best understood not only as a biological and cognitive phenomenon, but also as a socialcultural phenomenon.”
- David Myers

Emotions are expressed on the face, by the body, and by the intonation of voice. Is this nonverbal language of emotion universal?

Most of us are good at deciphering emotions through nonverbal communication. In a crowd of faces a single angry face will “pop out” faster than a single happy face (Fox et al, 2000).

Detecting Emotion
Hard-to-control facial muscles reveal signs of emotions you may be trying to conceal. A feigned smile may continue for more than 4-5 seconds while a genuine smile will have faded by then.
Which of Paul Ekman’s smiles is genuine?

In classical Hindu dance, the body is trained to effectively convey 10 different emotions.

Gender, Emotion, and Nonverbal
Behavior
Women are much better at discerning nonverbal emotions than men. When shown sad, happy, and scary film clips women expressed more emotions than men.

Gender, Emotion, and Nonverbal
Behavior
Which gender would you attribute to each face?

Gender, Emotion, and Nonverbal
Behavior
“If you have empathy , you identify with others and imagine what it must be like to walk in their shoes. You rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.”
- David Myers

Culture and Emotional Expression
When culturally diverse people were shown basic facial expressions, they did fairly well at recognizing them (Matsumoto & Ekman, 1989).

Darwin speculated that our ancestors communicated with facial expressions in the absence of language. Nonverbal facial expressions led to our ancestor’s survival.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Analysis of emotions are carried on different levels.

If facial expressions are manipulated, like furrowing brows, people feel sad while looking at sad pictures.
Attaching two golf tees to the face and making their tips touch causes the brow to furrow.

The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that looking happy may make us feel happy. In a pilot study, Eric
Finzi and Erik Wasserman attempted to apply this principle to the treatment of depression. They used the popular anti-wrinkle treatment Botox to prevent the act of frowning. Botox was injected into the frown muscles around the forehead and mouths of 10 female participants whose test scores had indicated the presence of clinical depression.
Finzi, E., & Wasserman, E.A. (2006). Treatment of depression with Botulinum Toxin A: A case series. Dermatological Surgery,
32, 645-650.

Findings after two months indicated that the treatments had eliminated symptoms of depression in nine of the women and reduced symptoms of depression in the tenth woman. Kathleen Delano, one of the participants in the study, described the impact of the treatment: “It wasn’t like I had Botox one night, woke up the next day and said ‘Hallelujah, I’m cured.’” Rather, over several weeks, she explained that she found herself talking to people more, getting out more often, and smiling more.
“I think Botox was the catalyst, the rope someone threw down the dark well I was in. I started doing things like going to the gym, to the movies.”
Finzi, E., & Wasserman, E.A. (2006). Treatment of depression with Botulinum Toxin A: A case series. Dermatological Surgery,
32, 645-650.

What are the limitations of this study?
How could further research support the results of this study?
Finzi, E., & Wasserman, E.A. (2006). Treatment of depression with Botulinum Toxin A: A case series. Dermatological Surgery,
32, 645-650.

Read p.514-527
“The face is more than a billboard that displays our feelings; it also feeds our feelings
.”
- David Myers