The Meanings of Emotional Expression

NICO H. FRIJDA The Meanings of Emotional Expression Nonverbal communication rests, to a large extent, upon expressive behavior. This paper intends to explore the nature of expressive behavior, in order to assess the nature of its contributions to nonverbal communication. There are a number of double meanings and ambiguities which lurk behind words that are used, and which befuddle the issues involved. The word 'communication' can be used in a variety of ways and it is disastrous when the connotations of one use are carried over to another one. 'Communication', in a wide sense, is used to refer to the mere fact that the behavior of one animal is influenced by his perception of the behavior of another animal. 'Commu- nication' may also be used in a more proper, much more restricted sense, when it refers to behavior produced in order to be perceived by another animal, and in order to influence the latter's behavior. 'In order to' may refer to intentional activity, as in most language production; or it may refer to the evolutionary advantages which, supposedly, have led to the development and survival of the behavior concerned, as in animal calls and rituals. The wider and the more restricted sense should be kept clearly separate. There is no doubt that emotional expression contributes to communication in the wide sense. An important problem, however, is to what extent emotional expression has anything to do with communication in the second, more proper and more purposive, sense. Related to the distinction of communication in a wide or in a restricted sense is the distinction between messages sent and messages received. The fact that some person or animal 'receives a message' does not necessarily imply that such a message was sent in any meaningful sense. A somber landscape and depressing weather are cases in point: the person receives an impression, but the landscape or the weather never sent one. Physiognomies present other examples. People wearing spectacles appear, on the whole, more honest, intelligent and diligent than people without spectacles, even if these same people have laid down their glasses (Thornton 1943). Moreover, such messages that may be sent need not be understood correctly or, conversely, messages received do not necessarily correspond to the messages that have been sent. 'Receiving messages', receiving impressions, being influenced by 104 Nico H. Frijda the behavior of others does not imply that a message was sent, that the impression was in some sense 'correct', that the other person's behavior intended the resulting influence. For every behavior which participates in 'communication' in the wide sense, it has to be determined anew whether it is 'com- municative' in a more restricted sense — as well as whether the messages received to correspond to messages emitted. Disentangling a few of these issues is the aim of the present paper. To put it more specifically: how com- municative (in the restricted sense) is emotional expression, and what does it communicate? EXPRESSION AS USEFUL BEHAVIOR: DARWIN'S FIRST PRINCIPLE Much of emotional expression, although it may convey information to an observer, indeed does not appear to be meant to do so. Rather, it appears, as the first part of Darwin's (1872) first principle has it, to be of 'direct or indirect use' for the subject, in ways which have nothing to do with communication. Of course, Darwin emphasized in his first principle the apparent useless- ness of expressions under some of the conditions in which they are mani- fested. At the same time, however, he stressed this direct or indirect use, not only in the phylogenetic past but also in the actual present. In fact, such use can be found in much of expression, to such an extent that it has given rise to an 'action theory of expression', in such authors as Darwin's contemporary Piderit (1867), or more recently Karl Biihler (1934). The principle that expression (much of expression) is useful, or at least meaningful, behavior can be applied to the detail of much expressive behavior and, in particular, to facial expression. Most writers on emotion connect positive emotions to approach behavior and negative emotions to avoidance or withdrawal, for example, Arnold (1960). In fact, positive emotion can hardly be defined other than as disposi- tion or inclination toward approach, or at least toward sustained intercourse with its object. Negative emotion, similarly, can best be defined as the tendency toward withdrawal, or, at least, toward abandonment of the situation and toward toning down its effects. Much of expression can be considered as variants of approach or withdrawal activity, or, more precisely, as either turning toward the source of the emotion, sensory readiness, readiness for approach and for response to his or her action; or protective activity, inhibition of action, turning away and decrease of sensory readiness and vul- nerability. As an example one may take expressions of fear. Fear may manifest itself in various ways, but protective components are, it would seem, present if anything at all is translated into behavior: protective narrowing of The Meanings of Emotional Expression 105 the eyes; withdrawal of the head, both backwards and into the shoulders; wary control or inhibition of movement; or all-out protective activity such as hiding behind mother's skirt or some object. The 'typical' facial expression is, it seems, part of overall protective crouching. If subjects are asked to adopt a fearsome facial expression, and to 'complete' that expression, they tend toward that crouching attitude (Frijda 1956). It may be stressed, in passing, that components of such protective behavior occur as admixtures to other behavior. Full-blown frightened expressions may be relatively infrequent, but not so fear's traces: constrictions of movement; protective slowing, in which movement and speech are overly controlled because the subject never knows what consequences his movements may elicit; a readiness for fuller constriction manifest only in its beginning, the frown (cf. Landis and Hunt 1939); or a furtive mode of looking, in which all that remains of protective behavior is an unwillingness to face a situation frontally, with concomitant longer latency of flight. Patterns of looking indeed offer clear arguments for an action theory of expression. The gaze contributes heavily to expression; and its functional nature is evident. Looking is establishing some sort of contact, and varieties of looking represent modulations of such contact. Looking steadily, or intently, or stealthily or hesitantly, or looking away are of 'direct use' for seeing more, or better, or more continuously, or while maintaining readiness for flight, or while dividing attention, et cetera, et cetera. A sad stare goes sideways or downward because attention is directed toward things absent, or because it avoids things present. Razran (1961) has pointed out that affective behavior is characterized insufficiently by just approach and avoidance behavior; one should add the category 'versive behavior'. Opening up and closing down, both visually and with respect to bodily contact, form a dimension of expression at least as important as approach and avoidance. The behavior concerned corresponds intelligibly with emotional states such as attention, fascination, 'innocence', receptivity, fearlessness on the one hand, and boredom, distaste, worry and anxiousness, reticence and distrust on the other. That such emotions and such behavioral traits may in fact correspond is suggested by correlations between such traits and judgments of emotions (Frijda 1969). Not all expressions are equally transparent, but still their functionality may be evident. As an example I mention the expression of concentration, consisting of a frown and possibly slightly narrowed eyes. The frown and narrowed eyes are clearly instrumental in maintaining eye-fixation in out- ward concentration. Oddly enough, they also seem instrumental in mental concentration (Schanzle 1939); it is hard to suppress them, in particular during efforts to overcome a distraction and the reason may be that they are 106 Nico H. Frijda a handle, so to speak, for voluntarily manipulating attention, whatever its nature. The functional nature of (much of) expression deserves emphasizing for several reasons. First, expressive behavior, facial expression included, is behavior; it is action, and not usually the manifestation of some localized bodily signal, such as pointing may be, or pursing the lips to signal doubt. It is behavior of a special kind, to be sure. Expressive behavior can be interpreted as relational behavior — behavior, that is, whereby the subject establishes, enhances or weakens his actual or potential relation with the environment, or with specific objects in that environment. Actual relations are involved in looking or approaching, or withdrawal; potential relations in exposure and in protective activity. Expression is behavior which primarily modifies such a relation without modifying the environment, or which at least endeavors such modification. This holds generally for expressive phenomena. Someone who eats greedily, for instance, does not add an expression of greed to his eating behavior. He eats because he intends to ingest food, and he eats greedily because he wants to ingest it as fully and as rapidly as possible. That is precisely what his 'greedy' behavior consists of: speed, grasping a new bite when the previous one is still being chewed, stuffing his mouth, et cetera. The second reason for emphasizing the functional nature of expression is that it shows expression to be linked to emotion in a nonarbitrary, noncon- ventional, intrinsic manner. If emotion consists, apart from evaluations, of action tendencies, as Arnold (1960) among others puts it, then expression is the realization or implementation of these tendencies. If fear is a tendency away, or anger a tendency against, or greed or interest a tendency toward, that is precisely what expression manifests, in its own incipient, or prepara- tory, relational way.

Load more