Emotion and Communication

The human experience of emotion is ubiquitous. Recently, however, communication theorists and researchers have discovered that the communication of emotion is similarly omnipresent. Emotions are not just private, subjective experiences; universal communication systems are designed to verbally and nonverbally communicate emotions to others.

Social evolutionary theorists recognize that emotional communication evolved because it conferred a selective advantage on expressive individuals. Fear displays, for example, evolved because they provide rapid danger signals to other members of the group, enhancing their collective survival. Across the gamut of human emotions, social evolutionary theorists have shown that every human emotion developed as more than an internal control system; emotions are consistently communicated because they provide powerful survival advantages.

Throughout primate evolution and human history, emotions have been communicated primarily through nonverbal communication. Emotional expression evolved long before the dawn of human language. Indeed, intercultural communication theorists have shown that human nonverbal emotional displays are primarily universal, though small regional “accents” or cultural variations exist. Cross-cultural similarity of emotional expressions indicates human evolutionary adaptations have occurred across the millennia.

Developmental communication theory also supports the primacy of emotional communication. Nonverbal emotional expression precedes verbal communication in each human's life. Every human infant is well-equipped at birth to express a variety of emotions. Successful communication depends on infants' being well-equipped emotional senders and the skill of adults who vary widely in their ability to read infant displays. Infants show little control over emotional expression; they are biologically adapted to automatically communicate emotions. While socialization inculcates display rules for appropriate emotional communication, even adults frequently produce automatic, spontaneous nonverbal expressions communicated through one's voice, body, arms, and predominantly facial expression.

[Page 333]Every emotion produces recognizable nonverbal displays. Similarly, emotions produce patterns of verbal communication designed to elicit appropriate responses in receivers. Paul Ekman's landmark research revealed that at least six basic emotions are primarily pancultural and communicated similarly in cultures worldwide. Cultural display rules teach each developing individual to mask, amplify, minimize, magnify, substitute, or conceal emotional communication. Recent research and theory suggest that emotions display regional variations or accents in how they are communicated. Nonetheless, the six emotions discussed next—fear, anger, sadness, disgust, happiness, and surprise—are culturally universal and communicated similarly across culture.