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Quote by Frans de Waal

“Reprimanded children sometimes can’t stop smiling, which risks being mistaken for disrespect. All they’re doing, though, is nervously signaling nonhostility. This is why women smile more than men, and why men who smile are often in need of friendly relations. One study explicitly looked at this underdog quality of the smile in pictures taken right before matches in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The photographs show both fighters defiantly staring at each other. Analysis of a large number of pictures revealed that the fighter with the more intense smile was the one who’d end up losing the fight later that day. The investigators concluded that smiling indicates a lack of physical dominance, and that the fighter who smiles the most is the one most in need of appeasement.”

Quote by Frans de Waal

Book:Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves
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Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves

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Frans de Waal
Frans de Waal

Frans de Waal is a renowned primatologist, born on October 29, 1948. His research focuses on the social behavior and cognitive abilities of non-human primates, having a profound impact on human ethology and social psychology. more

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“Just for future reference, don't use words like "love" anymore. It's a very sensitive word and it wears out quickly. Romeo barely says it, but John Hinckley filled up a whole journal with it. To put it into your terms, it's a currency that's easily devalued. Pretty soon you're saying it whenever you hang up the phone or whenever you leave. It turns into an apology. Then it's an excuse. Some assholes want it to be a bulletproof vest: don't hate me; I love you. But mostly it just means--more. More, more--give me something more. A couple of years from now, when you're on your own completely, if you really fall in love, if it really comes to that--and I pity you if it does--you have to look right down into the black of her eyes, right down into the emptiness in there and feel everything, absolutely everything she needs and you have to be willing to drown in it, Kevin. You'd have to want to be crushed, buried alive. Because that's what real love feels like--choking. They used to bury some women in their wedding dresses, you know. I thought it was because all those husbands were too cheap to spring for another gown, but now it makes sense: love is your first foot in the grave. That's why the second most abused word is "forever".”

LoveForeverEmptiness
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“I seriously doubt that the smile is our species’s “happy” face, as is often stated in books about human emotions. Its background is much richer, with meanings other than cheeriness. Depending on the circumstances, the smile can convey nervousness, a need to please, reassurance to anxious others, a welcoming attitude, submission, amusement, attraction, and so on. Are all these feelings captured by calling them “happy”? Our labels grossly simplify emotional displays, like the way we give each emoticon a single meaning. Many of us now use smiley or frowny faces to punctuate text messages, which suggests that language by itself is not as effective as advertised. We feel the need to add nonverbal cues to prevent a peace offer from being mistaken for an act of revenge, or a joke from being taken as an insult. Emoticons and words are poor substitutes for the body itself, though: through gaze direction, expressions, tone of voice, posture, pupil dilation, and gestures, the body is much better than language at communicating a wide range of meanings.”

EmotionsSmileAttractionHappySubmissionNervousness
Book:Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves
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