The expression of the emotions in humans and animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (in the English original: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ) is the title of a work by Charles Darwin , whose first edition was published on November 26 1872nd Thirteen years after the publication of his main work The Origin of Species and immediately after the publication of The Descent of Man (1871), he applied the theory of descent to the biology of behavior in this publication .
In “Expression” (as Darwin often abbreviated the title) he examined, among other things, whether the way in which the activity of the facial muscles of humans - facial expressions - makes one's emotions visible is acquired through learning or - regardless of the culture of the individual - is uniform and therefore presumably innate. He also pointed out numerous parallels in the expressive behavior of humans and animals and interpreted these similarities as support for his theory of the descent of humans and animals from common ancestors. His reasoning was controversial from the start, and his book was almost forgotten for decades.
History of origin
Charles Darwin began writing "Expression" two days after he last proofread the proofs of Human Descent , and he completed his work on the work just four months later. According to Darwin's own admission, however, as early as the beginning of 1840 - after the birth of his first child - Darwin noted the first preliminary considerations on the biological basis of expressive behavior:
"I paid attention to this point with my first-born child, who could not have learned through intercourse with other children, and came to the conviction that it understood a smile and felt joy to see one, and answered it with the same, at an age far too early to have learned anything through experience. "
Four months after publication, 9,000 copies of “Expression” had already been sold, but after that sales stalled; therefore, a second, revised edition prepared by Darwin and requested by him was no longer realized during his lifetime. This second edition did not appear until 1889, but it went almost unnoticed; the numerous reprints in English and the translations were all based on the first edition. The editor of the second edition, his son Francis Darwin , added numerous additions as footnotes to the text of the first edition, the material of which Charles Darwin had mostly received from enthusiastic readers and with which he wanted to further support his argument; also various revisions of the text, which Darwin et al. a. in response to critical reviews of his work had also already noted in his personal copy of "Expression". In addition, Francis Darwin made other additions on his own and left out other changes requested by the father.
The Critical Edition by Paul Ekman , published in English in 1998 and in German two years later , was created after reviewing the surviving personal copy of Charles Darwin and based on the second edition. This "third version can be considered complete because it also contains changes that Charles Darwin requested, but which his son did not include in the second edition."
A German translation by the zoologist Julius Victor Carus appeared in the year of its first English publication , the text of which was also used as the basis for the German version of the Critical Edition.
content
Before Darwin, as Paul Ekman notes, physiognomists were particularly interested in human facial expressions, “who were of the opinion that character or personality could be recognized from the static appearance of the face, the dimensions and shape of the facial features and their relationship to one another . "
The central question of the book, on the other hand, is whether the movements of the facial muscles when we are embarrassed, sad, angry or surprised, are acquired through learning or are innate. Darwin takes the view that such externally visible emotions are widespread worldwide and are therefore innate, that other living beings also have at least some of these emotions and that certain expressions of animals are similar to those of humans. He bases his argumentation on, among other things, observations from sources who, at his request, described the expressive behavior of so-called " natives " in what were then remote regions :
“In humans, some forms of expression, such as the ruffling of the hair under the influence of extreme horror, or the bare teeth under that of mad rage, can hardly be understood, except on the assumption that man was once in a much lower one and animal-like conditions existed. The commonality of certain expressions in different but related species [...] becomes somewhat more understandable if we believe in their descent from a common ancestor. "
After the numerous anatomical , paleontological and geological has documents that Darwin in his earlier works cited as support for the theory of evolution, he lit into "expression" human behavior as well as that of cats , dogs , horses , primates and many other animals. Darwin does not merely describe their expressive movements; rather, he also seeks answers to the question of why a certain movement or physiological reaction - and not another - occurs parallel to a certain emotion. For example, in Chapter 13 he analyzes in depth why people blush with embarrassment rather than pale. The emotions Darwin discusses include suffering and crying , depression and despair , joy , love and devotion , superiority and determination, hate and anger , contempt , helplessness and pride , shame and shyness .
Darwin begins his analysis with three principles by which he tries to answer the question of the why of an expression movement. He describes the first principle as "expedient habit": certain forms of expression have proven useful in the ancestors of individuals living today and have therefore been retained. Darwin attributes this to “physical changes in the nerve cells or nerves”, “because otherwise it would be impossible to understand why the tendency to certain acquired movements is inherited.” The second “principle of opposition” points out that some Elements of expressive behavior have been retained throughout tribal history because they look different from the opposite emotion. As an example, Darwin cites that in certain situations people drop their arms and shrug their shoulders when they feel insecure, because these movements are the opposite of those made by an aggressive person. Thirdly, Darwin finally introduces “the principle of the direct effect of the excited nervous system on the body, independent of the will and partly of habit”, a principle that Darwin himself later attested to as “indistinct”. This third principle anticipates questions that Sigmund Freud took up in his theory of the unconscious and which hormone research and neuroscience could not answer even a hundred years after Darwin.
effect
When it was first published in 1872, “Expression” was a bestseller . The English first edition already had 7,000 copies, and translations into German, Dutch, French, Italian and Russian appeared within a few years. But shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the book was almost forgotten:
“In Darwin's day, every educated person knew about his work and his revolutionary theory. [...] Today the layman as well as the expert knows who Darwin is, but his book on expressive behavior is not known. Many biologists don't even know that Darwin wrote such a book; in psychology, sociology and anthropology there is little evidence of this in the century after 'Expression' was published. "
The editor of the Critical Edition , Paul Ekman, cites several reasons why “expression” was no longer accepted by subsequent scholars . On the one hand, the empirical evidence contradicted that the emotions of humans are also a consequence of evolution and therefore part of their biological heritage, one of the emerging doctrines about the causes of behavior that is rapidly becoming dominant in English-speaking countries. John B. Watson and the behaviorism he founded , for example, attributed all learning to stimulus-response connections . “Experience, he announced, was the only thing that a properly understood psychology should concentrate on. The fact that Watson's view gained such popularity may be an expression of the fact that it was in harmony with the democratic zeitgeist - with the hope that social equality could be achieved if people could all live in environments that were convenient for them. ”At the same time In anthropology too, Margaret Mead 's particularly pointed theory dominated that culture completely determined social life: "A number of ethnologists claimed that there are no innate components in expressive behavior , no cross-cultural constants in any aspect of human facial expression." later researchers such as Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt , the founder of human ethology , confirmed Darwin's argument based on systematically collected evidence; Nevertheless, some researchers continue to deny that the emotions “joy”, “astonishment”, “fear”, “disgust”, “anger” and “sorrow” are cross-cultural constants.
Darwin was also criticized by many scientists because he described numerous behaviors of animals and humans as being of the same nature, i.e. also ascribing feelings to the animals: he did not just describe their expressive behavior in a distant manner, but expressly about their emotional movements , because "Darwin was convinced of it and also tried to convince his readers that emotions and their expression are not an exclusive peculiarity of humans. "Looking at the situation at the beginning of the 21st century, Ekman continues:" There is currently disagreement among those who study animal behavior Ask whether expressions can be viewed as signs of emotions in connection with internal physiological processes. ”Another point of criticism was directed against Darwin's approach of confirming his arguments with countless examples, but not presenting systematically collected data; in fact, a number of his examples later turned out to be incorrectly interpreted.
According to Paul Ekman, it wasn't until the late 1960s that the intellectual climate changed, so that Darwin's book was once again perceived as an important historical document. This was due to the upswing in ethology , whose leading representatives Karl von Frisch , Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz were awarded the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries regarding the structure and triggering of individual and social behavioral patterns". Regardless of the ethology, behavioral genetics on the one hand , and cognitive psychology and expression psychology on the other, developed . The youngest members of this diversification of today's mostly interdisciplinary research approaches are brain research and computational neuroscience in the field of biosciences, and evolutionary psychology , neuropsychology and biopsychology in the field of psychology .
Paul Ekman summarized the significance of Darwin's book for the present as follows:
“In 'expression' there are many observations and explanations that are also true according to today's scientific knowledge; others, as we know today, are utterly mistaken; and there are a few that science still argues about today. "
See also
- Charles Darwin: The formation of the soil through the action of worms
- Stare
literature
First editions
- The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . John Murray, London 1872 digitized version
- The expression of the emotions in man and animals . Translated from English by J. Victor Carus. E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagshandlung (E. Koch), Stuttgart 1872 digitized version of the 1877 edition
Critical Editions
- The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Definitive Edition. Published by Paul Ekman . Oxford University Press, USA, 1998, ISBN 0195112717 .
- The expression of the emotions in humans and animals. Critical edition, introduction, afterword and commentary by Paul Ekman. Translated by Julius Victor Carus and Ulrich Enderwitz. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2000, The Other Library series , ISBN 3-8218-4188-5 .
Recent research
- Carlos Crivelli et al .: The fear gasping face as a threat display in a Melanesian society. In: PNAS . Online advance publication of October 17, 2016, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1611622113 , background information
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Ekman : Foreword to the Critical Edition. In: Charles Darwin: The expression of emotions in humans and animals. Critical edition , introduction, afterword and commentary by Paul Ekman. Translated by Julius Victor Carus and Ulrich Enderwitz. 1st edition. Eichborn Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. IX, ISBN 3-8218-4188-5 ; hereinafter cited as "Darwin, Critical Edition"
- ↑ Darwin, Critical Edition, pp. XXII f.
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. 397
- ↑ Paul Ekman suspects (p. IX) that this was because "everyone in England who wanted a copy bought it in those early months ..."
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. IX
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. X
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. XXIII
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. 20
- ↑ Darwin, Kritische Edition, p. 37. - Paul Ekman comments on this: “Darwin's thesis that such changes in the brain are ultimately inherited, presupposes the theory of the inheritance of acquired traits, which we now know it is incorrect. "(p. 38)
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. 75
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. 95
- ↑ so Paul Ekman. In: Darwin, Critical Edition, pp. XXIV f.
- ^ Paul Ekman. In: Darwin, Critical Edition, p. XXXI
- ^ Paul Ekman. In: Darwin, Critical Edition, p. XXXII
- ^ Rachael E. Jack et al .: Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal. In: PNAS , online advance publication of April 16, 2012, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1200155109
- ↑ Ekman. In: Darwin, Critical Edition, p. XXV
- ↑ (in the original: "for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns")
- ^ Darwin, Critical Edition, p. XI. - Ekman commented on Darwin's text many times in the Critical Edition and, where necessary, corrected it with reference to more recent research results.
