Historical Background
Many biologists think the smile originated as a sign of fear. Primalogist Signe Preuschoft traces the smile back over 30 million years of evolution to a "fear grin" stemming from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless. Biologists believe the smile has evolved differently among species and especially among humans.
Biology is not the only academic discipline that interprets the smile. Those who study kinesics view the smile as an affect display. It can communicate feelings such as: love, happiness, pride, contempt, and embarrassment. More info: The Psychology of Human Smile, The Smile
Read more about this topic: Smile
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or background:
“Yet the companions of the Muses
will keep their collective nose in my books
And weary with historical data, they will turn to my dance tune.”
—Ezra Pound (18851972)
“Pilate with his question What is truth? is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)