Do basic emotions produce their predicted facial expressions in nonlaboratory settings? Available studies in naturalistic settings rarely test causation, but do show a surprisingly weak correlation between emotions and their predicted facial expressions. This evidence from field studies is more consistent with facial behavior having many causes, functions, and meanings, as opposed to their being fixed signals of basic emotion.

For more than a century expressions have been approached as bidimensional, static, instantaneous, self-contained, well-defined, and universal signals. These assumptions are starting to be empirically reconsidered: this special section of Emotion Review includes reviews on the physical, social, and cultural dynamics of expressions, and on the complex ways in which, throughout the lifespan, facial behavior and emotion are perceived and categorized by primates’ and humans’ brain. All these advances are certainly paving the way for new exciting approaches to facial behavior (...) more likely to strike an appropriate balance between description and explanation. (shrink)

On the assumption that shame is a universal emotion, cross-cultural research on shame relies on translations assumed to be equivalent in meaning. Our studies here questioned that assumption. In three studies,shamewas compared to its translations in Spanish and in Malayalam. American English speakers usedshamefor the emotional reaction to moral failures and its use correlated positively withguilt, whereasvergüenzaandnanakeduwere used less for moral stories and their use correlated less with the guilt words. In comparison with Spanish and Malayalam speakers’ ratings of their (...) translations, American English speakers ratedshameandguiltto be more similar to each other. (shrink)

We question two conceptual assumptions made by Niedenthal et al.: the dichotomy between true and false smiles and the close tie between recognition and experience of emotion. An excessive dependence on everyday language suggests overly parsimonious accounts of a complex set of relations between smile, experience, and context.