“DO you smile because you’re happy, or are you happy because you are smiling? Darwin believed that facial expressions are indeed important for experiencing emotions. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, he wrote that “the free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it…[whereas]…the repression…of all outward signs softens our emotions.” This idea was subsequently elaborated by the great psychologist William James, who suggested that “every representation of a movement awakens in some degree the actual movement which is its object.”
Botox, which is used by millions of people every year to reduce wrinkles and frown lines on the forehead, works by paralyzing the muscles involved in producing facial expressions. A study due to be published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that by doing so, it impairs the ability to process the emotional content of language, and may diminish the quality of emotional experiences.”
Read more at Neurophilosophy Blog
I’m not sure that’s what the study actually found.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/04April/Pages/botox-injections-mask-emotions.aspx
Facial expressions academic, Paul Eckman, wrote that he and his colleague felt particularly wretched after spending the day doing depressed faces to codify the muscles involved. He said that he thought his brain had taken the lead from his face (in effect).
And Oliver Sachs told the story of a woman who lost her sensory nerve function who had an attenuated emotional life afterwards.
Interesting stuff. Thanks for the tipoff about the study.
I wonder when people will develope ways if preventing emotion for the sake of ruthless effeciency.
Anyone going in for botox is probably gnawing away at themselves from within with repressed rage at unfairness of the passing of time anyway.
This would no doubt be a relief.
The next logical step is inter-cranial botox injections to paralyse the bits of the brain that make you give a flick about how you look.
Doesn’t really surprise me.
Biofeedback mechanisms create positive feedback loops (like getting the giggles- when you have stopped, the mere sensation of a smile creeping back onto your face can trigger further outbursts of hilarity).
Seems quite sensible that reducing the muscular response would affect the emotion.
Also, the physical aspects of emotion are often responsible for a lot of the inward personal experience of emotions, as is seen in the words we choose to describe emotional experience – butterflies in the stomach, a ball in the stomach, a clenched fist, etc.
Emotion = intensity and direction of thought process + sensory experience of physical response to the relevant neurochemical/s.
Twilord – what about antidepressants? Ritalin? we have medicalised normal emotion.
Surprised no one has commented on the picture yet. I’ll go first…
YAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!
End comment
A bit later now, but hope that doesn’t matter:
This issue started me off on a train of thought and it arrived at a blogpost:
http://jourdemayne.blogspot.com/2010/05/botox-and-being.html
Hope you enjoy it.