Why We Make Faces When We Are Alone | Alan Fridlund

a student came to me a while back after

psych one was over and she said

professor Friddle and I have a kind of a

weird question to ask you she said when

I’m on tinder and I’m swiping on all

these people I make these faces I make

these yuck faces I make these blah faces

I make these smiles and now I’m all

alone by myself

in my room me and my app and Here I am

making these goofy faces she says why am

i making these faces is there something

wrong with me well the first thing I had

to tell her was that there was nothing

wrong with her we all make faces when

we’re alone and in fact the fact that we

make faces when we’re alone turns out to

be one of the most interesting and

decisive questions in the whole field of

facial expressions which is something

I’ve been studying for about 142 years

so what I hope to do is to lead you on a

little journey today into an explanation

as to why we make faces when you’re

alone when we’re alone and the journey

starts here when we’re born when we’re

born we look at our mommy and our mommy

looks back at at us and she’s in focus

which is a miracle of sorts because our

visual systems are wired such that well

we’re not good at focusing on things

when we’re born we’re only good at

seeing things about eight to ten inches

away which is about the distance that

mommy holds our head such that our face

is eight to ten inches from her face she

looks at us we look at her she smiles at

us it’ll be a while before we can return

pretty soon by about six to eight weeks

we’re starting to use our faces we start

to cry and make wry faces toward our

caretakers and we find that they respond

to us they find what needs fixing and

they fix it

pretty soon we learn that they come by

when they see a cry face and they don’t

even wait for us to start crying

in fact they come when they see a cry

face before we start crying so that they

don’t have to hear us cry we also buy

about eight weeks start to make a smile

often times with a little bit of a

giggle and they come running because we

find with that smile we can hook them

into playing with us as long as we want

to stay awake and this is the beginning

of bonding

you know our bonding with mama was the

most important social bond we’ll ever

have in our lives now when we broadcast

these kinds of faces we can bring all

kinds of other people family even the

family pets into our social sphere we

also begin to use our faces to recruit

other people into helping us solve our

problems and resolve our conflicts we

start to see this about 10 or 11 months

and a gadget called a contraption called

a visual cliff this is a contraption

that has a glass floor with a drop off

about halfway across so that the infant

who goes across the floor has two faces

a choice point do I stay back or do I

crawl along the glass floor even though

there’s a drop-off well we find

something odd that happens if mommy’s at

the other end what she does affects

whether the infant chooses to hold back

or proceed and here we see an infant

that face that infant makes says I need

data

mommy smiles if she if the infant sees

mommy smiles guess what happens the baby

proceeds and goes off to conquer the

world but if baby says I need data and

mommy frowns guess what happens baby

holds back now this process is called

social referencing and it’s not a

process that’s confined to infancy we

use this process the rest of our lives

whenever we face a situation that’s

ambiguous our instinct is immediately to

turn to other people to say how am I

supposed to understand what’s going on

it’s the means by which we build our

consensual reality and it’s the means by

which we form community values now a

funny thing happens by the time we reach

preschool we’ve got this repertoire by

which we signal other people they signal

back to us when we develop a social

interchange mutual reciprocal signaling

but by the time we hit preschool we’re

likely to see a poster like this on the

walls how many of you remember a poster

like this when you went to school raise

your hand

you know the poster this poster says

there are certain faces that we make and

there are certain feelings that go with

these faces now it’s kind of odd that we

have to be taught this our teacher goes

through this and says now this is a

happy face and you make this face when

you feel happy chances are we never

thought about the faces we were making

we got along just fine without all this

formal education why that why all the

pedagogy on this and where did it come

from well it turns out that there were

studies in the 1960s in which people got

together and said well you know we think

there are about six Universal emotions

across cultures and we think there are

about six faces that go with these

emotions so we’re going to test

theory so we’re gonna take these

emotions and we’re going to take these

faces go all over cultures we’re going

to take familiar cultures we’re going to

take remote cultures and we’re gonna see

if people can match the faces to the

emotions and when you look across

cultures they can do it a little better

than chance so guess what the faces

confirm the emotions the emotions

confirm the faces and look we got faces

fitting into boxes and that’s the basis

for these posters but that’s a kind of a

circular logic isn’t it

for example if I’m an ancient Greek or I

believe like the ancient Greeks bit I

could say there are four elements in

nature earth air fire and water and now

here are four catastrophes I’m going to

ask you to match the catastrophe with

the element I’m guessing I could go to

almost any culture on the planet and

you’d be able to match the catastrophe

to the element the catastrophe that

expresses the element probably most of

you would be able to match fire to

volcanoes and so forth but does this

tell us anything about the nature of the

world and do those studies that put

faces into boxes tell us anything about

how we use our faces in everyday life

well if we just take this study right

here I can tell you that at last count

there were a hundred and eighteen

elements not four and let’s just go

abracadabra there are now 14 more

natural catastrophes not four so these

kinds of experiments where you simply

match lists don’t tell you much about

how people use how people what kinds of

catastrophes are exist in the world how

many elements there are or how people

use their faces in the world in fact

despite that this view of faces and

boxes is true or at least it’s being

taught all over the world here are faces

as depicted in boxes from France Spain

and Hong Kong my claim and what I hope

to lead you to is the idea that or the

realization that we use our faces much

more subtly and that we use our faces in

the context of who

word whom we’re interacting with and

what the context is of the interaction

let’s take this person right here this

is a person from Papua New Guinea this

is one of the exotic locales that these

cross-cultural studies were performed in

now let’s just say that I’m the woman

and you asked me do I have a stomachache

and you’re my sister

I’m going to make one kind of face to

you but if you’re a complete stranger

who asks me do I have a stomachache I’m

going to make a very different kind of

face to you we pick the people and the

moment to make the kinds of faces we

make in fact the faces I make to you

aren’t about me they’re about you we

pick our faces depending on who you are

and why you want to know so for example

if there are studies that show for

example take bowlers bowlers when they

make a strike they don’t smile when they

make a strike they wait until they turn

around and greet the others in their

bowling party and then they make us of

their smile it’s as though their smile

says look what I just did at the

Olympics Olympians when they receive

their gold medals they don’t smile when

they receive their medals

the moment of greatest happiness if you

will they smile when they turn around

and meet their fellow and meet the gaze

of their fellow athletes it’s almost

like they’re sharing their happiness or

they’re bringing home their triumphs to

their clan now let’s go back to our path

a new guinea woman okay you’re my sister

and you asked me about my tummy ache I

may make a face that says to you

I’m suffering so much with my tummy

sister it’s a face that maybe reaches

out for support it’s a face that says

I’ve suffered so much if you’re a

complete stranger who asked me about my

tummy ache I’m likely to make a face

that says my tummy is none of your

and and so our faces are ways that that

I influence you when i en’t when I make

a face to my sister that face is a way

of recruiting empathy a way of

recruiting succor maybe it’s a way of

saying sister I really could use your

support I really could use a hug I

really could use you to call the doctor

for me maybe go get some medicine for me

all that is part of my presentation to

my sister if I’m saying it to a stranger

it could be a way of saying don’t go

there anymore just get out of here no

Why We Make Faces When We Are Alone | Alan Fridlund | TEDxSDSU