Week 2 Post

Sara Dholakia

I thoroughly enjoyed the chapters we read out of Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals for many reasons; Darwin presents many of the ideas I had been pondering in regards to facial expression in an eloquent and articulate way, and to prove his point, uses everyday examples that anyone can relate to, whether they be a part of the lay public or of the scientific community.

Regarding the first principle Darwin expounds is “The Principle of Serviceable Associated Habits” (29), and this essentially asserts that complex actions directly or indirectly serve certain states of mind to relieve or gratify sensations, and whenever that state of mind is aroused, through sheer force of habit, those complex actions are launched. This principle implicitly addresses the presence and force of the unconscious, which LeDoux discusses. This is of course not the unconscious of Freud, but the cognitive unconscious. Darwin permits that some of the aforementioned actions may be suppressed through an exercise of will, but one would necessarily have to be aware of the action taking place.

The second principle Darwin puts forth is “The Principle of Antithesis” (29), which takes into account the first principle then claims that when states of mind opposite from the ones causing the actions mentioned in the first principle are aroused, there is a “strong, involuntary tendency” to perform actions that are of an opposite nature. Upon first reading this, I was not sure if I agreed with this theory or not, but it must be said that Darwin offers many compelling examples such as that of the cat and dog. The cat, both domestic and wild, when ready to pounce, crouches down, bristling somewhat, etc; this reaction is clearly an evolutionary adaptation, allowing the cat to spring into action from its crouching position upon seeing its target. The opposite reaction, seen in domesticated cats, is that of affection towards its caretaker. In this situation, the cat perks up its ears and tail and perhaps rubs itself on the caretaker. In the wild, I can see no need for any such action, and so it follows that it is indeed very possible that this reaction is merely the opposite of the attack position.

The third and last principle that Darwin offers is “The Principle of Actions Due to the Constitution of the Nervous System, Independently from the First of the Will, and Independently of a Certain Extent of Habit” (29). For this one, I had to check dictionary.com for the definition of “sensorium,” which means the seat of sensation in the brain. We now know that there is not just one area designated as the “seat of sensation,” and that different parts of the brain are employed for different types of sensation. Given this, on a technical level, Darwin’s theory is false, and as such, requires no discussion.

To conclude, this reading certainly gave me a lot to think about, and I am incredibly interested to know what everyone else thought about this, and if I was the only one persuaded by Darwin.