The Expression of the Emotions in Infancy

Abstract

expression of the emotions has been a point of controversy for several years. For a critical review and bibliography of the literature on this topic the reader is referred to Landis (2). Repeated experiments have shown that facial expression alone as shown in the ordinary still photographs of adults posed to simulate various types of emotional expression is an inadequate basis for identifying emotion, since there will usually be much disagreement among judges as to the specific emotions which the different photographs were designed to portray. Even less agreement has been found when the material consists of photographs taken in the laboratory under conditions of genuine emotional excitement or strain. These results have led some persons to the conclusion that the facial expression of emotion is in the main a learned reaction, functioning primarily as a form of language. Like other languages it may be expected to differ somewhat from one social group to another, and to become modified in various ways with the passage of time. That the overt expression of emotion among adults may be inhibited or simulated in order to conform to social standards can hardly be doubted. It seems improbable, however, that such modification of expression either for the purpose of concealment of emotion or of conveying the idea of an emotion not actually felt will occur during the first year of life; while anyone who has ever attempted to induce a young infant to imitate an action performed in his presence may well doubt whether any large proportion of the changes in facial expression shown at those early ages have been brought about through either conscious or unconscious imita-