Human nature and the social orderCooley, Charles Horton
Science
Human nature and the social order
Cooley, Charles Horton
Individualism; Social psychology; Sociology
The wrinkles about the eyes and mouth, which are perhaps the most
expressive parts of the countenance, would not be so noticeable at first
as the eyes, the lips, and the teeth, but they are always in the field
of vision, and in time their special significance as a seat of
expression comes to be noticed and studied. M. appeared to understand a
smile sufficiently to be pleased by it about the end of the tenth month.
The first unequivocal case of smiling in response to a smile was noticed
on the twenty-sixth day of this month. Even at this age smiling is not
imitative in the sense of being a voluntary repetition of the other’s
action, but appears to be merely an involuntary expression of pleasure.
Facial expression is one of the later things to be imitated, for the
reason, apparently, that the little child cannot be aware of the
expression of his own countenance as he can hear his own voice or see
his own hands; and therefore does not so soon learn to control it and to
make it a means of voluntary imitation. He learns this only when he
comes to study his features in the looking-glass. This children do as
early as the second year, when they may be observed experimenting before
the mirror with all sorts of gestures and grimaces.
The interpretation of a smile, or of any sort of facial expression, is
apparently learned much as other things are. By constant study of the
face from the first month the child comes, in time, to associate the
wrinkles that form a smile with pleasant experiences—fondling, coaxing,
offering of playthings or of the bottle, and so on. Thus the smile comes
to be recognized as a harbinger of pleasure, and so is greeted with a
smile. Its absence, on the other hand, is associated with inattention
and indifference. Toward the end of the fifth month M., on one occasion,
seemed to notice the change from a smile to a frown, and stopped smiling
herself. However, a number of observations taken in the tenth month show
that even then it was doubtful whether she could be made to smile merely
by seeing someone else do it; and, as I say, the first unequivocal case
was noticed toward the end of this month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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