4 ms·

How many of these universals are shared with other mammals (especially apes)?

TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
Showing teeth, universally means aggression. In humans, it's for showing you are happy, or excited.
gumby 3y ago
I don't think any other species has the set of facial muscles humans do. Cats seem inscrutable because they have very few; dogs seem more understandable because they can move their eyebrows. I think the non-human animal with the most facial expressions is the chimpanzee, but even then it is much less expressive than a human in this regard. Various mammals have (non-facial) macroexpression somewhat similar to humans, such as excitement, curiosity and fear. Many non-mammals such as birds, fish, and some reptiles can express fear to some extent.
- jamiek88 3y ago
  I think we share a very similar disgust response to other primates primarily and some other mammals as well including dogs.
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    Fear and anger on the face of a human and a wolf are very similar. Include body language in general and the similarities expand. If a mammal drops its head, widens its eyes and its ears pull back (yes humans do that too), its time to look for escape, or a weapon.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  I don't think cat faces are all that much less expressive than dog faces. They have a wide variety of facial expressions, including surprise, irritation/anger, happiness, playfulness, anxiety/fear, disgust, and so on - and that's not including at cat body language, especially tail movements. Our cat has perfected the guilt-tripping innocent stare. She stands beside her food bowl looking almost blank. This somehow communicates a combination of infinite sadness and disappointment, blended with child-like hopefulness. It's very effective.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    I suspect the most effective for pets is a perfect blank slate onto which the owner can project whatever they want.
    - manonthewall 3y ago
      have you ever owned and been inseparable from a pet? you absolutely can interpret their moods and you can find papers on it if you like, they do have expressions and body language. It may not be the same as humans necessarily but it is there if you care to research it.
  - cm2012 3y ago
    Once you know cats (or probably any other advanced animal) you can read their emotions like a book. Lots of people don't know how to read cats though.
- sdiupIGPWEfh 3y ago
  > Cats seem inscrutable because they have very few; dogs seem more understandable because they can move their eyebrows. What's wild is that we're apparently directly responsible for the eyebrow thing in dogs. As in we literally bred the feature into them. - https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1820653116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1820653116 - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dogs-eyebrows-humans-communication https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dogs-eyeb... - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/science/dogs-eyebrows-evolution.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/science/dogs-eyebrows-evo...
- tanepiper 3y ago
  As someone who spends a lot of time closely with dogs, and recently raised a little of 6 spaniels - dogs "talk" via their facial expressions and can make sounds beyond just barks. My pet theory is that women bonded with dogs first through an ability to have a mutual understanding with non-verbal communication, and we most likely observed them and could "talk" to them in their own ways - something that has been lost as we turned dogs from inter-species partners to enslaved commodities. We're slowly starting to rediscover it.
  - ido 3y ago
    Why women specifically? Or did you mean humans?
    - hnbad 3y ago
      Probably extrapolating from the debunked pseudoscience of "women were gatherers, men were hunters", which fuels 90% of present evopsych nonsense. For those unaware: prehistorical "hunter-gatherer" societies likely did not have strong divisions of labor and there is no evidence to suggest such a universal division across gender lines. Quite the opposite, actually. Turns out when you hunt large mammals in a group, the statistical physical advantages men have don't really matter all that much and women in turn aren't inherently better at child rearing (which historically was a group activity shared by the entire tribe).
      - someuser2345 3y ago
        > Turns out when you hunt large mammals in a group, the statistical physical advantages men have don't really matter all that much Even if women and men are equal in their hunting skill, it would still make evolutionary sense for women not to participate in the hunts. Hunting large mammals is dangerous, and men are more disposable than women. If a tribe loses most of its men, it can still survive since a single man can impregnate multiple women. Whereas if a tribe loses most of its women it is far more likely to die out.
      - edgyquant 3y ago
        That isn’t debunked, how ridiculous. It’s true not all men were hunters, but that doesn’t mean that there was an equal share of women among the hunters. They travelled as a group and everyone gathered, but men went out to get the kill.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  As other commenters said, cats are far from inscrutable. But a lot of their expressiveness comes from their tail and ears, two modalities that humans happen to lack.
wolverine876 3y ago
Some universals are certainly shared with other creatures, and it's not even restricted to mammals. From one article: Take, for example, social facilitation or the notion that organisms tend to perform better on simple tasks in the presence of observers. Although disagreement about its innate origins exists (Do-Yeong and Junsu 2010), social facilitation has had supportive evidence in humans in a natural setting (Michaels et al. 1982), cockroaches (Zajonc et al. 1969), and macaques (Dindo et al. 2009). (I don't know about facial expressions, though the fact that I don't know means little - I've just read a bit about it.) There are other universals among non-human species, not shared with us, such as 100+ discovered for chimpanzees. Source: Reza Ziai, "Cross-Cultural Universality". In Todd K Shackelford, Viviana A Weekes-Shackelford, eds. Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer (2021)

Showing teeth, universally means aggression. In humans, it's for showing you are happy, or excited.

I don't think any other species has the set of facial muscles humans do. Cats seem inscrutable because they have very few; dogs seem more understandable because they can move their eyebrows. I think the non-human animal with the most facial expressions is the chimpanzee, but even then it is much less expressive than a human in this regard. Various mammals have (non-facial) macroexpression somewhat similar to humans, such as excitement, curiosity and fear. Many non-mammals such as birds, fish, and some reptiles can express fear to some extent.

jamiek88 3y ago
I think we share a very similar disgust response to other primates primarily and some other mammals as well including dogs.
- galangalalgol 3y ago
  Fear and anger on the face of a human and a wolf are very similar. Include body language in general and the similarities expand. If a mammal drops its head, widens its eyes and its ears pull back (yes humans do that too), its time to look for escape, or a weapon.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
I don't think cat faces are all that much less expressive than dog faces. They have a wide variety of facial expressions, including surprise, irritation/anger, happiness, playfulness, anxiety/fear, disgust, and so on - and that's not including at cat body language, especially tail movements. Our cat has perfected the guilt-tripping innocent stare. She stands beside her food bowl looking almost blank. This somehow communicates a combination of infinite sadness and disappointment, blended with child-like hopefulness. It's very effective.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  I suspect the most effective for pets is a perfect blank slate onto which the owner can project whatever they want.
  - manonthewall 3y ago
    have you ever owned and been inseparable from a pet? you absolutely can interpret their moods and you can find papers on it if you like, they do have expressions and body language. It may not be the same as humans necessarily but it is there if you care to research it.
- cm2012 3y ago
  Once you know cats (or probably any other advanced animal) you can read their emotions like a book. Lots of people don't know how to read cats though.
sdiupIGPWEfh 3y ago
> Cats seem inscrutable because they have very few; dogs seem more understandable because they can move their eyebrows. What's wild is that we're apparently directly responsible for the eyebrow thing in dogs. As in we literally bred the feature into them. - https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1820653116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1820653116 - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dogs-eyebrows-humans-communication https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dogs-eyeb... - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/science/dogs-eyebrows-evolution.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/science/dogs-eyebrows-evo...
tanepiper 3y ago
As someone who spends a lot of time closely with dogs, and recently raised a little of 6 spaniels - dogs "talk" via their facial expressions and can make sounds beyond just barks. My pet theory is that women bonded with dogs first through an ability to have a mutual understanding with non-verbal communication, and we most likely observed them and could "talk" to them in their own ways - something that has been lost as we turned dogs from inter-species partners to enslaved commodities. We're slowly starting to rediscover it.
- ido 3y ago
  Why women specifically? Or did you mean humans?
  - hnbad 3y ago
    Probably extrapolating from the debunked pseudoscience of "women were gatherers, men were hunters", which fuels 90% of present evopsych nonsense. For those unaware: prehistorical "hunter-gatherer" societies likely did not have strong divisions of labor and there is no evidence to suggest such a universal division across gender lines. Quite the opposite, actually. Turns out when you hunt large mammals in a group, the statistical physical advantages men have don't really matter all that much and women in turn aren't inherently better at child rearing (which historically was a group activity shared by the entire tribe).
    - someuser2345 3y ago
      > Turns out when you hunt large mammals in a group, the statistical physical advantages men have don't really matter all that much Even if women and men are equal in their hunting skill, it would still make evolutionary sense for women not to participate in the hunts. Hunting large mammals is dangerous, and men are more disposable than women. If a tribe loses most of its men, it can still survive since a single man can impregnate multiple women. Whereas if a tribe loses most of its women it is far more likely to die out.
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      That isn’t debunked, how ridiculous. It’s true not all men were hunters, but that doesn’t mean that there was an equal share of women among the hunters. They travelled as a group and everyone gathered, but men went out to get the kill.
Sharlin 3y ago
As other commenters said, cats are far from inscrutable. But a lot of their expressiveness comes from their tail and ears, two modalities that humans happen to lack.

wolverine876 3y ago

Some universals are certainly shared with other creatures, and it's not even restricted to mammals. From one article: Take, for example, social facilitation or the notion that organisms tend to perform better on simple tasks in the presence of observers. Although disagreement about its innate origins exists (Do-Yeong and Junsu 2010), social facilitation has had supportive evidence in humans in a natural setting (Michaels et al. 1982), cockroaches (Zajonc et al. 1969), and macaques (Dindo et al. 2009). (I don't know about facial expressions, though the fact that I don't know means little - I've just read a bit about it.) There are other universals among non-human species, not shared with us, such as 100+ discovered for chimpanzees. Source: Reza Ziai, "Cross-Cultural Universality". In Todd K Shackelford, Viviana A Weekes-Shackelford, eds. Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer (2021)