Author | Charles Darwin |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Evolutionary theory, human behaviour |
Publisher | John Murray |
Publication date | 1872 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is Charles Darwin's third major work of evolutionary theory, following On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). Initially intended as a chapter in Descent of Man, Expression grew in length and was published separately in 1872. Darwin explores the biological aspects of emotional behaviour and the animal origins of human characteristics like smiling and frowning, shrugging shoulders, lifting eyebrows in surprise, and baring teeth in an angry sneer.
A German translation of Expression appeared in 1872, and Dutch and French versions followed in 1873 and 1874. Though Expression has never been out of print since its first publication,[ citation needed ] it has also been described as Darwin's "forgotten masterpiece". [1] [2] Psychologist Paul Ekman has argued that Expression is the foundational text for modern scientific psychology.
Before Darwin, human emotional life had posed problems to the traditional philosophical categories of mind and body. [3] [4] Darwin's interest in the subject can be traced to his time as an Edinburgh medical student and the 1824 edition of Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression by Charles Bell, which argued for a spiritual dimension to the subject. In contrast, Darwin's biological approach links emotions to their origins in animal behaviour, allowing cultural factors only an auxiliary role in shaping the expression of emotion. This biological emphasis highlights six different emotional states: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. It also appreciates the universal nature of expression, implying a shared evolutionary heritage for the entire human species. Darwin points to the importance of emotional communication with children in their psychological development.
Darwin sought out the opinions of some leading psychiatrists, notably James Crichton-Browne, in preparation for the book, which forms his main contribution to psychology. [5]
The book involves several innovations: Darwin circulated a questionnaire (probably inspired by his cousin, Francis Galton)[ citation needed ] during his preparatory research; simple psychology experiments on the recognition of emotions with his friends and family; [6] and (like Duchenne de Boulogne, a physician at the Salpêtrière Hospital) the use of photography in his presentation of scientific information. Darwin's publisher warned him that including the photographs would "make a hole in the profits" of the book. [7]
Expression is considered[ by whom? ] an important landmark in the history of book illustration.
In the weeks before Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838, Charles Darwin sought medical advice for his mysterious physical symptoms. He then travelled to Scotland for rest and a "geologising expedition" but also revisited the old haunts of his undergraduate days. On the day of the coronation, 28 June 1838, Darwin was in Edinburgh. Two weeks later, he opened a private notebook—Notebook M—for philosophical and psychological commentary and, over the next three months, filled it with his thoughts about possible interactions of hereditary influences with the psychological aspects of life. [8] Darwin made his first attempt at autobiography in August 1838. [9]
Darwin fully grasps his conception of natural selection towards the end of September 1838, after encountering the sixth edition of Essay on Population (1826) by Thomas Malthus. [8] [10] [11] Unlike in Notebook D and Notebook N, Malthus and his essay are not mentioned in Notebook M.
In Notebook M, Darwin writes about conversations with his father—a successful doctor with a special interest in psychiatric problems—about recurring patterns of behavior in successive generations of his patients' families. Howard E. Gruber comments that these passages hint about the motor expression of emotions and thought, while the main emphasis is on the continuity between sane and insane. [12]
Darwin was concerned about the materialistic drift in his thinking and the suspicions this might arouse in early Victorian England. At the time, he was mentally preparing for marriage with his cousin Emma Wedgwood, who held firm Christian beliefs. On 21 September 1838, Notebook M discloses a "confusing" dream where Darwin found himself involved in a public execution; the corpse had come to life and joked about not running away and facing death like a hero. [13]
Darwin assembled the central features of his evolutionary theory while developing an appreciation of human behavior and family life. During this period, Darwin experienced significant emotional turmoil.
A detailed discussion of the significance of Notebook M can be found in Paul H. Barrett's Metaphysics, Materialism and the Evolution of Mind – Early Writings of Charles Darwin (1980).
In its public management, Darwin understood that his evolutionary theory's relevance to human emotional life could draw an anxious and hostile response.
While preparing the text of The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication in 1866, Darwin began to explore topics related to human ancestry, sexual selection, and emotional life. After his initial correspondence with the psychiatrist James Crichton-Browne, [14] Darwin set aside his material concerning emotional expression to complete Descent of Man, which covered human ancestry and sexual selection. He finished work on The Descent of Man on 15 January 1871. Two days later, he began work on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals and completed most of the text within four months; progress then slowed because of work required on the sixth (and final) edition of The Origin of Species and criticism from St. George Jackson Mivart. Darwin finished his work on the proofs on 22 August 1872.
Darwin brings his evolutionary theory close to behavioural science in Expression, although several commentators have perceived spectral Lamarckism within its text. [15]
In the book, Darwin notes the universal nature of expressions: "The young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements." This connection of mental states to the neurological organisation of movement, suggested by the shared etymological roots of motive and emotion, is central to Darwin's understanding of emotion.
Darwin displayed several biographical links between his psychological life and locomotion: taking long, solitary walks around Shrewsbury after his mother died in 1817; in his seashore rambles near Edinburgh with the Lamarckian evolutionist Robert Edmond Grant in 1826 and 1827; [16] [17] [18] and in laying out the sandwalk, his "thinking path", at Down House in Kent in 1846. [19] These aspects of Darwin's personal life are discussed in the psychoanalytic biography Charles Darwin, A Biography (1990) by John Bowlby. [20]
Darwin contrasts his idea of a shared human and animal ancestry to the ideas of Charles Bell, which are aligned with natural theology. Bell claimed that facial muscles were designed to express uniquely human feelings. In the fifth edition of The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression (1865), Bell stated: "Expression is to passion what language is to thought." [21] In Expression, Darwin reformulates the issues at play: "The force of language is much aided by the expressive movements of the face and body", hinting at a neurological connection between language and psychomotor function. [22]
Darwin attended debates about psychology at the Plinian Society in December 1826 and March 1827 as a medical student at Edinburgh University. These were prompted by the publication of the second edition of Charles Bell's Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression (1824). In his presentations, the phrenologist William A.F. Browne ridiculed Bell's theological explanations, pointing instead to the similarities of human and animal biology. Both meetings ended in uproar. Darwin revisits these debates 45 years later and recruits Duchenne de Boulogne's Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine . He shifts the debate from philosophical to scientific discourse and highlights the social value of facial expression over vocalisations, tears, and posture.
Darwin's response to Bell's natural theology is discussed in Lucy Hartley's Physiognomy and the Meaning of Expression in Nineteenth Century Culture (2001). [23]
In the composition of the book, Darwin drew on worldwide responses to his research and findings:
As a result of his domestic psychology experiments, Darwin reduced the number of commonly observed emotions from Duchenne's calculation of more than sixty facial expressions to six "core" expressions: anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness, and sadness.
Darwin corresponded with James Crichton-Browne, the son of the phrenologist William A. F. Browne and the then medical director of West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. At the time, Crichton-Browne was publishing The West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports. Recognising the significant contributions of Crichton-Browne, Darwin suggested to him that Expression "ought to be called by Darwin and Browne?" [24]
Darwin also drew on his personal experience of the symptoms of bereavement and studied the text of Henry Maudsley's 1870 Gulstonian Lectures on Body And Mind. [25]
Darwin considered other approaches to the study of emotions, such as their depiction in the arts—as discussed by the actor Henry Siddons in his Practical Illustrations of Rhetorical Gesture and Action (1807) and by the anatomist Robert Knox in his Manual of Artistic Anatomy (1852)—but abandoned the approaches as unreliable. Only a few sections in Expression mention deception. [26]
Expression opens with three chapters (1–3) entitled "General Principles of Expression", where Darwin introduces three principles:
In the following chapters (4–6), Darwin presents his findings on modes of emotional expression peculiar to particular species, including humans.
Chapters 7–8 contain Darwin's observations on "low spirits" (anxiety, grief, dejection, and despair) and "high spirits" (joy, love, tender feelings, and devotion). Darwin claims that high spirits, exemplified by joy, find their purest expression in laughter.
Subsequent chapters (9–13) discuss various emotions and their expression. In his discussion of the emotion "disgust", Darwin notes its close links to the sense of smell and conjectures an association with offensive odours. In chapter 13 (which highlights the emotional states of self-attention, shame, shyness, modesty, and blushing), Darwin describes blushing as "the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions".
Darwin closes the book with chapter 14, where he summarises his central argument, demonstrating how human emotions link mental states with bodily movement. He argues that these expressions are genetically determined and derive from purposeful actions observed in animals. He comments on the book's implications, proposing a single origin for the entire human species, with universal human expressions. Darwin emphasises the social value of expression, especially the emotional communication between mother and child.
Because of the limited printing techniques of the 1800s, photographs were usually tipped into the pages of books. This process was expensive and labour-intensive since each photograph had to be printed and tipped in individually. Darwin proposed using heliotype to print the photographs to his publisher—John Murray—believing it would be cheaper. [27] It allowed the illustrations to be bound directly with the pages of text, and the printing plates could be reused, which reduced costs.
The printing company Darwin chose for the photographs proved to be expensive. Robert F. Cooke, John Murray III's cousin and partner in his publishing company, expressed concern about the increasing production costs and warned Darwin that including the photographs "will make a terrible hole in the profits of each edition". [7] [28] Darwin proceeded with the printing process, and most of Expression was illustrated by photographic prints—with seven heliotype plates; figures 19–21 were printed using woodcuts. [29]
The published book contains the work of several artists:
Darwin received dozens of photographs of psychiatric patients from James Crichton-Browne but only included one—photoengraved by James Davis Cooper—titled "Figure 19". It depicts a patient under the care of Dr James Gilchrist at the Southern Counties Asylum.
Darwin concluded work on the book with a sense of relief. The proofs, tackled by his daughter Henrietta ("Ettie") and son Leo, required a major revision, which made Darwin "sick of the subject and myself, and the world". [31]
Expression was published by John Murray on 26 November 1872 as a sequel to The Descent of Man and was expected to reach a broad audience in mid-Victorian England. It quickly sold almost 7,000 copies. [32] [33]
A revised edition was published by Darwin's son in 1890, excluding several revisions suggested by Darwin; these were not published until the 1999 edition, edited by Paul Ekman. [34]
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A review in the January 1873 Quarterly Journal of Science concluded that "although some parts are a little tedious, from the amount of minute detail required, there is throughout so much of acute observation and amusing anecdote as to render it perhaps more attractive to general readers than any of Mr. Darwin's previous work". [35]
On 24 January 1895, James Crichton-Browne delivered the lecture "On Emotional Expression" in Dumfries, Scotland, presenting some of his reservations about Darwin's views. He argued for a greater role for the higher cortical centres in regulating emotional responses and discussed gender differences in emotional expression. [36]
In a 1998 review of Expression, edited by Paul Ekman, Eric Korn argues in the London Review of Books that Margaret Mead and her followers had claimed and subverted the book before Ekman reinterpreted it. Korn notes that Ekman collected evidence supporting Darwin's views on the universality of human expression of emotions, indirectly challenging Mead's views. Korn challenges Ekman's calling Expression "Darwin's lost masterpiece", pointing out that the book has never been out of print since 1872. [37]
The editors of the Mead Project website comment that Expression is among the most enduring contributions of 19th-century psychology and argue that although the book lays its foundation on an arguable interpretation of the nature of expression, its ideas continue to influence discussions on emotional experience. The editors cite John Dewey's comments on the book, writing that Darwin's arguments are "wrong but ... compelling". [38]
In 2003, the New York Academy of Sciences published Emotions Inside Out: 130 Years after Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, a collection of 37 papers (edited by Paul Ekman) with recent research on the subject.
George Romanes (1848–1894), an advocate of Darwin in comparative psychology, died prematurely, diminishing Darwin's impact on academic psychology. Darwin's impact was further compromised by Wilhelm Wundt's dimensional approach to emotions and the widespread influence of behaviourism during the 20th century.
Sigmund Freud's early publications on the symptoms of hysteria (with his influential concept of unconscious emotional conflict) acknowledged debts to Darwin's work on emotional expression. [39]
All these sensations and innervations belong to the field of The Expression of the Emotions, which, as Darwin (1872) has taught us, consists of actions which originally had a meaning and served a purpose. These may now for the most part have become so much weakened that the expression of them in words seems to us to be only a figurative picture of them, whereas in all probability the description was once meant literally; and hysteria is right in restoring the original meaning of the words....
— Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria (1895)
In 1905, Arthur Mitchell, a psychiatrist and former deputy to William A.F. Browne in the Scottish Lunacy Commission, published About Dreaming, Laughing and Blushing, [40] linking some of Darwin's concerns with psychoanalysis. Psychiatrist John Bowlby extensively references Darwin's ideas in his presentations on attachment theory.
Darwin's impact on psychoanalysis is discussed in detail by Lucille Ritvo in Darwin's Influence on Freud: A Tale of Two Sciences (1990). [41]
William James followed up Darwin's ideas in his What Is An Emotion? (1884). In the James–Lange theory of emotions, James develops Darwin's emphasis on the physical aspects, like the autonomically mediated components of emotions.
In Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage (1915) by Walter Cannon, [42] Cannon introduces the phrase fight-or-flight response , formulating emotions in terms of strategies for interpersonal behaviour and how these emotions are amplified in groups or crowds—herd behavior. Psychological theories of emotion have also been set out in the Two-factor theory of emotion, put forth by Schachter and Singer, the Papez–Maclean hypothesis, and the theory of constructed emotion. [43]
Theories on psychosomatic factors in personality were elaborated by psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer; neurologist Paul Schilder, with his notion of body image in The Image and Appearance of the Human Body: Studies in the Constructive Energies of the Psyche (1950); and in the theory on somatotypology proposed by William Herbert Sheldon in the 1940s—now largely discredited. Zoologist Desmond Morris further explored the biological aspects of human emotions in his illustrated scientific book Manwatching (1978), [44] and recent research has confirmed that while cultural factors are critical to determining gestures, genetic factors are crucial to forming facial expressions.[ citation needed ]
The detailed approach to illustrating biological subjects [45] continued in contributions through various subjects: photographer Eadweard Muybridge's work on animal locomotion, [46] [47] which influenced the development of cinematography; Scottish naturalist James Bell Pettigrew's studies on animal locomotion, documented in his works Animal Locomotion, or, Walking, Swimming and Flying, with a dissertation on Aeronautics (1874) and Design in Nature (1908); the illustrated and controversial works of evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel; and to a lesser extent, in On Growth and Form (1917) by D'Arcy Thompson. [48]
Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.
A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a Duchenne smile. Among humans, a smile expresses delight, sociability, happiness, joy, or amusement. It is distinct from a similar but usually involuntary expression of anxiety known as a grimace. Although cross-cultural studies have shown that smiling is a means of communication throughout the world, there are large differences among different cultures, religions, and societies, with some using smiles to convey confusion, embarrassment or awkwardness.
Facial expression is the motion and positioning of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. These movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers and are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information between humans, but they also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species.
Paul Ekman is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was ranked 59th out of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century in 2002 by the Review of General Psychology.
A microexpression is a facial expression that only lasts for a short moment. It is the innate result of a voluntary and an involuntary emotional response occurring simultaneously and conflicting with one another, and occurs when the amygdala responds appropriately to the stimuli that the individual experiences and the individual wishes to conceal this specific emotion. This results in the individual very briefly displaying their true emotions followed by a false emotional reaction.
Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne was a French neurologist who revived Luigi Galvani's research and greatly advanced the science of electrophysiology. The era of modern neurology developed from Duchenne's understanding of neural pathways and his diagnostic innovations including deep tissue biopsy, nerve conduction tests (NCS), and clinical photography. This extraordinary range of activities was achieved against the background of a troubled personal life and a generally indifferent medical and scientific establishment.
Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or animal actively maintains the experience, and is associated with enjoyment, happiness, laughter and pleasure. It is an emotion with positive valence and high physiological arousal.
The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is a system to taxonomize human facial movements by their appearance on the face, based on a system originally developed by a Swedish anatomist named Carl-Herman Hjortsjö. It was later adopted by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, and published in 1978. Ekman, Friesen, and Joseph C. Hager published a significant update to FACS in 2002. Movements of individual facial muscles are encoded by the FACS from slight different instant changes in facial appearance. It has proven useful to psychologists and to animators.
An emotional expression is a behavior that communicates an emotional state or attitude. It can be verbal or nonverbal, and can occur with or without self-awareness. Emotional expressions include facial movements like smiling or scowling, simple behaviors like crying, laughing, or saying "thank you," and more complex behaviors like writing a letter or giving a gift. Individuals have some conscious control of their emotional expressions; however, they need not have conscious awareness of their emotional or affective state in order to express emotion.
Emotionality is the observable behavioral and physiological component of emotion. It is a measure of a person's emotional reactivity to a stimulus. Most of these responses can be observed by other people, while some emotional responses can only be observed by the person experiencing them. Observable responses to emotion do not have a single meaning. A smile can be used to express happiness or anxiety, while a frown can communicate sadness or anger. Emotionality is often used by experimental psychology researchers to operationalize emotion in research studies.
Sir James Crichton-Browne FRS FRSE was a leading Scottish psychiatrist, neurologist and eugenicist. He is known for studies on the relationship of mental illness to brain injury and for the development of public health policies in relation to mental health. Crichton-Browne's father was the asylum reformer Dr William A.F. Browne, a prominent member of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society and, from 1838 until 1857, the superintendent of the Crichton Royal at Dumfries where Crichton-Browne spent much of his childhood.
Emotions are biocultural phenomena, meaning they are shaped by both evolution and culture. Emotions are "internal phenomena that can, but do not always, make themselves observable through expression and behavior". While some emotions are universal and are experienced in similar ways as a reaction to similar events across all cultures, other emotions show considerable cultural differences in their antecedent events, the way they are experienced, the reactions they provoke and the way they are perceived by the surrounding society. According to social constructionist theories, emotions are more deeply culturally influenced. The components of emotions are universal, but the patterns are social constructions. Some also theorize that culture is affected by the emotions of the people.
Discrete emotion theory is the claim that there is a small number of core emotions. For example, Silvan Tomkins concluded that there are nine basic affects which correspond with what we come to know as emotions: interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, fear, anger, shame, dissmell and disgust. More recently, Carroll Izard at the University of Delaware factor analytically delineated 12 discrete emotions labeled: Interest, Joy, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Self-Hostility, Fear, Shame, Shyness, and Guilt.
The Edinburgh Phrenological Society was founded in 1820 by George Combe, an Edinburgh lawyer, with his physician brother Andrew Combe. The Edinburgh Society was the first and foremost phrenology grouping in Great Britain; more than forty phrenological societies followed in other parts of the British Isles. The Society's influence was greatest over its first two decades and declined in the 1840s; the final meeting was recorded in 1870.
Armindo Freitas-Magalhães is a Portuguese psychologist working on the psychology of the human smile in the context of emotion and facial expression. His research and clinical-forensic expertise includes investigative interviewing, credibility assessment, forensic assessment, facial expression of emotion and variables associated with eyewitness memory in victims and offenders of crime and trauma. He has also provided consultation and training overseas.
The Plinian Society was a club at the University of Edinburgh for students interested in natural history. It was founded in 1823. Several of its members went on to have prominent careers, most notably Charles Darwin who announced his first scientific discoveries at the society.
Dr William Alexander Francis Browne (1805–1885) was one of the most significant British asylum doctors of the nineteenth century. At Montrose Asylum (1834–1838) in Angus and at the Crichton Royal in Dumfries (1838–1857), Browne introduced activities for patients including writing, group activity and drama, pioneered early forms of occupational therapy and art therapy, and initiated one of the earliest collections of artistic work by patients in a psychiatric hospital. In an age which rewarded self-control, Browne encouraged self-expression and may therefore be counted alongside William Tuke, Vincenzo Chiarugi and John Conolly as one of the pioneers of the moral treatment of mental illness. Sociologist Andrew Scull has identified Browne's career with the institutional triumph of nineteenth century psychiatry.
"Browne was one of the reformers of the asylum care of the insane whose improvements and innovations were chronicled in his annual reports from The Crichton Royal Institution, but who in addition published almost on the threshold of his career a sort of manifesto of what he wished to see accomplished...." Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine (1963) Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry 1535–1860, page 865.
"In language all-too-revelatory of the political issues at stake, [Browne] denounced 'he who refuses the aid of medicine....as he who doubts the efficacy of moral agents'....In the final analysis, one might abandon the millenarian expectations on which Victorian asylumdom had been mistakenly constructed - but not betray one's commitment to the medical monopolization of the treatment of the mad...." Andrew Scull (1991) The Asylum As Utopia: W A F Browne and the Mid-Nineteenth Century Consolidation of Psychiatry
The study of the evolution of emotions dates back to the 19th century. Evolution and natural selection has been applied to the study of human communication, mainly by Charles Darwin in his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin researched the expression of emotions in an effort to support his materialist theory of unguided evolution. He proposed that much like other traits found in animals, emotions apparently also evolved and were adapted over time. His work looked at not only facial expressions in animals and specifically humans, but attempted to point out parallels between behaviors in humans and other animals.
Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine. ou, Analyse électro-physiologique de l'expression des passions des arts plastiques. is a monograph on the muscles of facial expression, researched and written by Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne de Boulogne (1806–75). It first appeared as an abstract published in Archives générales de médecine in 1862 and was then published in three formats: two octavo editions and one quarto edition. The work was an important resource used by Charles Darwin (1809–82) for his own study on the genetics of behaviour, titled The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, and in recent years it has been reclaimed as an important landmark in the history of the photographic arts.
Facial coding is the process of measuring human emotions through facial expressions. Emotions can be detected by computer algorithms for automatic emotion recognition that record facial expressions via webcam. This can be applied to better understanding of people’s reactions to visual stimuli.
Darwin's English publisher, John Murray, was at first opposed to the idea of using photographs to illustrate the book. He advised Darwin that the inclusion of photographs would make Expression a money-losing proposition
Heliotype was a new photomechanical method of reproduction invented by the photographer Ernest Edwards (1837–1903), for whom Darwin had sat for a portrait in 1868. Although he had no experience in photographic publishing, Darwin suggested this new technique to John Murray. ... heliotype reduced the cost of production considerably, enabling Darwin to afford the unprecedented number of photographs appearing in Expression.
To [Leonard Darwin] 29 July [1872] [Down] CD cannot improve style [of Expression] without great changes. 'I am sick of the subject, and myself, and the world'.
Early writings of Charles Darwin. With a commentary by Howard E. Gruber
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