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Behavioral scientists' fascination with faces

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Abstract

Darwin's book,The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, published in 1872 stimulated scientists to study facial expression of emotions. When objective measures of scientific eminence are applied to the workers engaged in face-related research it is evident that a large number of them are famous scientists. Further analysis indicates that, almost without exception, each member of this group of famous investigators produced only one, or at most two, face-related articles. Not one of the eminent people became famous as a result of their face-related work. It is proposed that this pattern of research productivity is rarely found in other areas of the behavioral sciences. The reasons for, and the consequences of the lack of, concentrated effort by competent investigators into face-related problems is discussed. Current status of face-related research is briefly discussed; future trends are suggested.

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  1. University of Missouri, 210 McAlester Hall, 65211, Columbia, MO

    Alvin G. Goldstein

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Help with this paper has come from several sources to which my gratitude is now expressed: to June Chance for calling my attention to many of the documents related to child and clinical research and for her repeated attempts to improve the readability of this manuscript; to Robert Daniel for encouraging me to write the article in the first place and for the long helpful discussions we have had about the eminent psychologists; to Lisa Pohlman for her unflagging assistance in locating library source materials. A portion of this work was accomplished while the author was on leave at the University of Newcastle in Australia, and the help and support received from the staff and the faculty at that institution are hereby gratefully acknowledged. Funds from the Graduate Research Council of the University of Missouri were helpful in the preparation of this manuscript.

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Goldstein, A.G. Behavioral scientists' fascination with faces. J Nonverbal Behav 7, 223–255 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986268

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