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Non-verbal communication: Sadness

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I found this facinating read on facial expressions many of us naturally feature in our own photographs:

http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/sadness.htm

Emotion. An unpleasant visceral feeling of sorrow, unhappiness, depression, or gloom.

Usage: Sadness shows a. in bowing postures of the body wall; b. in the cry face and lip-pout; c. in gazing-down; d. in a slumped (i.e., flexed-forward) posture of the shoulders; and e. in the audible sigh.

RESEARCH REPORTS: 1. Signs of sadness include drooping eyelids; flaccid muscles; hanging head; contracted chest; lowered lips, cheeks, and jaw ("all sink downwards from their own weight"); downward-drawn mouth corners; raised inner-ends of the eyebrows (i.e., contraction of "grief muscles"); and remaining motionless and passive (Darwin 1872:176-77). 2. Sadness shows most clearly in the eye area (Ekman, Friesen, and Tomkins 1971).

Evolution. Sadness is a mammalian feeling which stems from a. grief associated with maternal-infant separation, and b. defeat inflicted in fighting.

Anatomy. In acute sadness, muscles of the throat constrict, salivary glands release a viscous fluid, repeated swallowing occurs, the eyes close tightly, and the lacrimal glands release tears. Facial signs include a. frowning eyebrows (corrugator supercilii, occipitofrontalis, and orbicularis oculi muscles contract); b. frowning mouth (depressor anguli oris); c. pouted or compressed lips (orbicularis oris); and d. depression and eversion of the lower lip (depressor labii inferioris)--as the facial features constrict as if to seal-off contact with the outside world.

Primatology. "Gradually, over several years, he [a chimpanzee who lost his mother at age 3] developed abnormal behavior, consisting of social isolation, unusual posturing, rocking, an increase in self-grooming, and a habit of pulling out hairs and chewing them" (Hamburg et al. 1975:247).

Neuro-notes. Each of the four cranial nerves for chewing (V); moving the lips, crying, and salivating (VII); and sighing and swallowing (IX and X) originally played a gut-reactive, visceral role (see SPECIAL VISCERAL NERVE) related to the gastrointestinal tract (Goldberg, 1995:35). The sick "gut feeling" we associate with sadness is mediated by the enteric nervous system of the stomach, intestines, and colon.

Antonym: HAPPINESS. See also MAMMALIAN BRAIN.

Copyright 1998 - 2005 (David B. Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)

2007 Aug 5