Facial Expressions Aren't As Universal As Scientists Have Thought
Two Expressions Two of the six expressions that were shown to participants in the study ("Happy" and "Disgusted") Stephen Vedder, courtesy of IASLab For nearly half a century, social scientists have operated under the assumption that all basic human emotions are universally recognizable. Countless cross-cultural experiments— not to mention a few television shows—have both directly and implicitly referenced the view, stemming largely from the 1972 research of psychologist Paul Ekman, that every person on earth expresses facial emotion in the same way, and regardless of cultural context, we can all interpret the basic universal emotions—happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust—in the expressions of the people around us. It's a belief that has impacted countless studies and, in general, our understanding of how emotions affect our daily lives. But according to new research published...