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The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory

Why do we leak lubricant from the eyes to solicit comfort from others? Why do we bare our teeth and crinkle our faces to express non-aggression? The defensive mimic theory proposes that a broad range of human emotional expressions evolved originally as exaggerated, temporally extended mimics of the...

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Autor principal: Graziano, Michael S. A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10426066/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37588928
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.5
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author Graziano, Michael S. A.
author_facet Graziano, Michael S. A.
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description Why do we leak lubricant from the eyes to solicit comfort from others? Why do we bare our teeth and crinkle our faces to express non-aggression? The defensive mimic theory proposes that a broad range of human emotional expressions evolved originally as exaggerated, temporally extended mimics of the fast, defensive reflexes that normally protect the body surface. Defensive reflexes are so important to survival that they cannot be safely suppressed; yet they also broadcast information about an animal's internal state, information that can potentially be exploited by other animals. Once others can observe and exploit an animal's defensive reflexes, it may be advantageous to the animal to run interference by creating mimic defensive actions, thereby manipulating the behaviour of others. Through this interaction over millions of years, many human emotional expressions may have evolved. Here, human social signals including smiling, laughing and crying, are compared component-by-component with the known, well-studied features of primate defensive reflexes. It is suggested that the defensive mimic theory can adequately account for the physical form of not all, but a large range of, human emotional expression.
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spelling pubmed-104260662023-08-16 The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory Graziano, Michael S. A. Evol Hum Sci Perspective Why do we leak lubricant from the eyes to solicit comfort from others? Why do we bare our teeth and crinkle our faces to express non-aggression? The defensive mimic theory proposes that a broad range of human emotional expressions evolved originally as exaggerated, temporally extended mimics of the fast, defensive reflexes that normally protect the body surface. Defensive reflexes are so important to survival that they cannot be safely suppressed; yet they also broadcast information about an animal's internal state, information that can potentially be exploited by other animals. Once others can observe and exploit an animal's defensive reflexes, it may be advantageous to the animal to run interference by creating mimic defensive actions, thereby manipulating the behaviour of others. Through this interaction over millions of years, many human emotional expressions may have evolved. Here, human social signals including smiling, laughing and crying, are compared component-by-component with the known, well-studied features of primate defensive reflexes. It is suggested that the defensive mimic theory can adequately account for the physical form of not all, but a large range of, human emotional expression. Cambridge University Press 2022-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC10426066/ /pubmed/37588928 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.5 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
spellingShingle Perspective
Graziano, Michael S. A.
The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory
title The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory
title_full The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory
title_fullStr The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory
title_full_unstemmed The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory
title_short The origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: The defensive mimic theory
title_sort origin of smiling, laughing, and crying: the defensive mimic theory
topic Perspective
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10426066/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37588928
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.5
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