Study Reduces Human Emotions from Six to Four
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Jacob Wackerhausen/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Sorry, Dr. Paul Ekman, the University of Glasgow begs to differ with your long-standing theory that there are six basic human emotions linked to facial expressions.
Ekman has stated that happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust are easily interpreted in the face, no matter what culture one is from.
However, scientists at the University of Glasgow says Ekman counted too many emotions and that there are actually just four, based on their research of muscles in the human face.
They agree with Ekman that happiness and sadness are separate emotions but contend that fear and surprise can be combined because they share the same trait such as widened eyes.
Similarly, anger and disgust are also merged into one because they can be detected by the wrinkling of the nose.
Lead researcher Dr. Rachael Jack thus concludes, “Our research questions the notion that human emotion communication comprises six basic, psychologically irreducible categories. Instead we suggest there are four basic expressions of emotion.”
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