Paul Ekman – Emotions and Body Language
We start talking about Paul Ekman, a pioneer psychologist in the study of the facial expression of emotions after Darwin and William James. He maintains that body language and face are sign systems for emotions, universal and generally involuntary. At first it was thought that it was something cultural, but after several studies it was found that it is innate, you do not learn.
Throughout his 40 years of research, Ekman has established 4 capacities:
- Choose between being emotionally. You cannot choose where the impulse of emotion is born, but you can develop the ability to detect before acting, there is a space between them that can be expanding.
- When you are emotional you can choose the associated behavior.
- Learn to be more sensitive to the emotions of others
- Help national security, reduce errors in research and interrogations.
As for body language, observing people is an inexhaustible source of information ("the facts say more than words"). Certain emotions are closely linked to bodily expressions, and this works in the 2 senses. The body does not lie and the face either, you cannot deceive unless you are a great actor. This is because the face is connected with a lot of facial and cranial nerves, and when we feel an emotion, those nerves are activated and the muscles begin to move. But sometimes we try to disguise emotions by courtesy or to deceive. Some ways to detect it is to look at how in/comfortable a person is;And the micro expressions, rapid expressions that occur when we try to repress our true emotion. This is why understanding nonverbal communication has become a valuable tool in the judicial system, security equipment and marketing.
You need to know the human face, how it works and how it moves. Facial expressions are scheduled in the brain and are common to all human beings. This is because, in ancient times, we were constantly pending any danger and there were only nonverbal behaviors, so expressions had a value for us in terms of survival.
Joe Navarro, FBI agent, worked for a human behavior analysis program to interpret it. His success was based on looking at things on which others did not repair, like the feet. You can know a lot about a person because of their way of walking, their intentions, mood and even health status. The way we feel is reflected in our way of moving, but the opposite can also happen. In a Ted talk, Amy Cuddy talks about "poses of power". The body and mind are communicated at all times, so we can make our body influence how we feel. This serves to treat, for example, posttraumatic stress disorder, through therapies that correct posture, breathing, etc., modifying thoughts and emotions so that the person feels that he is really safe.
Finally, Roberto Valenti, director of a technology company, works on a computer -based project that includes the body language oriented to market study, to measure consumers’ reactions to advertisements.
In conclusion, the study of emotions and their body expression is a very complex field that we still know little. But through technological advances, there are more and more forms of recognition that help in multiple areas of life.
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