Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

What about those head turns and head movements down? Various species, including pigs, rabbits, pigeons, doves, Japanese quail, loons, and salamanders, resort to head movements down, head turns, head bobs, and constricted posture to appease. These actions shrink the size of the organism, and expose areas of vulnerability (the neck and jugular vein, in the case of human embarrassment). These actions signal weakness. Darwin himself arrived at a similar analysis of the shoulder shrug, which typically accompanies the recognition of ignorance (or intellectual weakness) and appears as the opposite of the postural expansion of dominance. At the heart of the embarrassment display, as in other species’ appeasement behaviors, is weakness, humility, and modesty.

The embarrassed smile has a simple story with a subtle twist. The smile originates in the fear grimace or bared-teeth grin of nonhuman primates. Go to a zoo and watch the chimps or macaques, and you’ll see subordinate individuals grin like fools as they approach dominant peers. Yet the embarrassed smile is more than just a smile; it has accompanying muscle actions in the mouth that alter the appearance of the smile. The most frequent one is the lip press, a sign of inhibition. When people encounter strangers in the street they often greet each other with this modest smile. Just as common are lip puckers, a faint kiss gracing the embarrassed smile as it unfolds during its two-to three-second attempt to make peace. Within reconciliation, many primates turn to sexual displays—rump presentations, genital touch and contact, and sexual mounting. While humans are not so bawdy in how they short-circuit aggression, we do show signs of affection—subtle lip puckers—in our embarrassment, to warm hearts and bring others closer. This explains why embarrassment displays and the coy smile are put to good use during flirtation and courtship.

The face touch may be the most mysterious element of embarrassment. Several primates cover their faces when appeasing. Even the rabbit rubs its nose with its paws when appeasing. Face touching in humans has many functions. Some acts of face touching act as self-soothing (the repetitive stroking of hair in the back of the head). Other face touches are iconic (the tragic rub of the inner eye; the flirtatious hair flick, which expands the coif to peacock-tail proportions). Certain face touches seem to act like the curtains on a stage, closing up one act of the social drama and ushering in the next. A psychoanalyst has even argued that we face-touch to remind ourselves that we exist, in the midst of social exchanges where our sense of self feels to be drifting away.

A clue to the origins of face touching in human embarrassment came from one participant from the original startle study. After she had been startled, she pulled her head into a shoulder shrug, and up went the hand, as if it was timed to deflect an aggressive blow. Some face touches (for example, covering the eyes) signal the exiting of the situation; others seem to be the residual actions of defensive postures. An element of embarrassment is self-defense.

In turning to other species’ appeasement displays, the social forces that have shaped this display during the tens of millions of years of primate evolution were there to see. This simple display brought together signals of inhibition, weakness, modesty, sexual allure, and defense all woven together in a two-or three-second display. The mission of the display is to make peace, to prevent conflict and costly aggression, and to bring people closer together, to reestablish cooperative bonds. We may feel alienated, flawed, alone, and exposed when embarrassed, but our experience and display of this complex emotion is a wellspring of forgiveness and reconciliation. The complement would also prove to be true: The absence of embarrassment is a sign of abandoning the social contract.

EVANESCENT SIGNS OF MORAL COMMITMENT

 

Imagine that our most intimate relationships were arranged like speed dating. You are allowed one question to ask of others to figure out who will become lifelong friends, spouses, and work colleagues. What question would you ask? Do you call your mother regularly? How do you treat your cat? Have you ever thrown your back out trying to avoid stepping on an ant?

This thought experiment may sound absurd but in point of fact has clear parallels in analyses of the evolutionary origins of cooperation. Being good to others has many costs, and exposes the individual to exploitation by those who are less generous. Given the costs and risks of cooperation, we are on the hunt for subtle, unspoken signs of integrity, honesty, kindness, and trustworthiness.