Notes
CHAPTER 1. Shame in Everyday Life
CHAPTER 2. Our Emotional Lives
As we will see, the occurrence of language, which is a feature of emotional expression unique to humans, may serve in and of itself to dampen the expressive behavior found in the face. Thus, one interaction between expression systems may be a reciprocal one, such that suppression of one leads to the accenting of others. Alternatively, expression in one modality may enhance expression in another. One can think of the training of soldiers in this regard. To enhance physical violence or bodily expression of anger, soldiers are taught to use vocal behavior, that is, to scream and yell obscenities at the âdummyâ enemy. It is assumed that the yelling enhances the motor expression of aggression and anger.
Benjamin is a 1-year-old child who has been left alone in his room. His mother closes the door and walks out. Unbeknownst to him, we are photographing his behavior and we notice the following behavior. Benjamin cries. A simple, short whinelike sound. He stops and pauses and looks to see whether the cry brings his mother to the room. Hearing no sounds of approach, he cries again.
Contrast this behavior with that of another child, who, when left alone, starts to cry and does not pause to listen to the effect of her cry. We would argue that these two children are using vocal expression for different purposes. For Benjamin, the cry represents an instrumental response designed to get his mother to return to the room. It may or may not index his internal state. The cry of the second child, however, is a measure of the childâs internal distress since the child does not appear interested in the effect of her cry. The second example occurs in a somewhat older child.
Felicia is 20 months old and she is playing in the yard by herself while her mother watches her from her study window where she is preparing her teaching lesson. During the course of play, Felicia stumbles and bangs her knee. She starts to cry but, looking around and seeing no one there, stops crying and resumes her play. She continues to play happily for the next 10 minutes. She then stops her play and, skipping and running, moves toward the entrance to the house. She enters the house through the back door and walks to her motherâs study where, upon opening the door, Felicia starts to cry.
Here again, facial and vocal expression appear to represent the childâs instrumental action rather than reflecting her internal state. From her motherâs viewpoint, her internal state for the past 10 minutes appears to be that of a happy and playful child. That the child cries upon seeing the mother cannot represent the childâs emotional state at that moment. At best, it represents a communication about some event in the past. These, and many more examples, can be presented to show that expression does not bear a one-to-one correspondence to our internal emotional states, even in early life.