<P> The universality hypothesis is the assumption that certain facial expressions and face - related acts / events are signals of specific emotions ( happiness with laughter and smiling , sadness with tears , anger with a clenched jaw , fear with a grimace , surprise with raised eyebrows and wide eyes along with a slight retraction of the ears , and disgust with a wrinkled nose and squinted eyes -- emotions which frequently lack the social component of those like shame , pride , jealousy , envy , deferance , etc . ) and are recognized by people regardless of culture , language , or time . The belief in the evolutionary basis of these kinds of facial expressions can be traced back to Darwin 's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . Reviews of the universality hypothesis have been both supportive and critical . Work in 2013 by Nelson and Russell and Jack et al. has been especially critical . </P>
<P> The universality hypothesis is the assumption that certain facial expressions and face - related acts / events are signals of specific emotions ( happiness with laughter and smiling , sadness with tears , anger with a clenched jaw , fear with a grimace , surprise with raised eyebrows and wide eyes along with a slight retraction of the ears , and disgust with a wrinkled nose and squinted eyes -- emotions which frequently lack the social component of those like shame , pride , jealousy , envy , deferance , etc . ) and are recognized by people regardless of culture , language , or time . The belief in the evolutionary basis of these kinds of facial expressions can be traced back to Darwin 's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . Reviews of the universality hypothesis have been both supportive and critical . Work in 2013 by Nelson and Russell and Jack et al. has been especially critical . </P>
who was the first researcher to suggest that facial expressions are pre-verbal
who was the first researcher to suggest that facial expressions are pre-verbal
Darwin
Darwin