Table Of ContentNONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION
OF AGGRESSION
ADV ANCES IN THE STUDY OF
COMMUNICATION AND AFFECT
Volume 1. NONVERBALCOMMUNICATION
Edited by Lester Krames, Patricia Pliner, and Thomas Alloway
Volume 2. NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION OF AGGRESSION
Edited by Patricia Pliner, Lester Krames, and Thomas Alloway
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring
delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon
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ADVA NCES IN THE STUDY OF
COMMUNICATION AND AFFECT
Volume 2
NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION
OF AGGRESSION
Edited by
Patricia Pliner, Lester Krames, and Thomas Alloway
Erindale College
University of Toronto
Mississauga, Ontario
PLENUM PRESS · NEW YORK AND LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Symposium on Communication and Affect, 4th Erindale College, 1974.
Nonverbal communication of aggression.
(Advances in the study of communication and affect; v. 2)
Includes bibliographies and index.
l. Nonverbal communication-Congresses. 2. Aggressiveness (psychology)-Con
gresses. I. Pliner, Patricia.lI. Krames, Lester. III. Alloway, Thomas. IV. Title. [DNLM:
1. Nonverbal communication-Congresses. 2. Aggression-Congresses. W3 SY508K
1974n/BF575.A3 S989 1974n]
BF637.C4S91974 156'.2'52 75-28122
ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-2837-7 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-2835-3
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4684-2835-3
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Symposium on Communication and Affect
held at Erindale College, University of Toronto, March 28-30, 1974
© 1975 Plenum Press, New York
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1s t edition 1975
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Contributors
PHOEBE C. ELLSWORTH
Ya!e University, New Haven, Connecticut
STEVE L. ELL YSON
University of De!aware , Newark, De!aware
RALPH V. EXLINE
University of De!aware, Newark, De!aware
BENSON E. GINSBURG
Professor of Biobehaviora! Seien ces , University of Connecticut
Storrs, C onnecticut
CARROLL E. IZARD
Vanderbi!t University, Nashville, Tennessee
BARBARA LONG
Goucher ColleKe, Towson, Mary!and
E. W. MENZEL, JR.
State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York
ROBERT E. MILLER
Department of Psychiatry, Schoo! of M edicine, U niversity of Pittsburgh
PittsburKh, Pennsylvania
STANLEY C. RATNER
Michigan State U niversity, East LansinK, MichiKan
HARVEY SARLES
Department of Anthropo!o!?v, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Minnesota
Contents
CHAPTER 1
Language and Communication-l/: The View from . 74
HARVEY SARLES
On Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Aspects of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 12
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18
CHAPTER 2
Visual Behavior as an Aspect of Power Role Relationships 21
RALPH V. EXLINE, STEVE L. ELL YSON, AND BARBARA LONG
Introduction ................................................ 21
Empirical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 25
Experiment 1: Visual Attentiveness in Relation to Power
Differences in Legitimate and IIIegitimate Hierarchies . . . . . . .. 25
Experiment 2: Visual Interaction as a Consequence of Various
Reward Ratios in Legitimate Power Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . .. 29
Interpersonal Control Orientation and Visual Attentiveness in a
Dyadic Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 44
Discussion 47
References 51
CHAPTER 3
Direct Gaze as a Social Stimulus: The Example of Aggression 53
PHOEBE C. ELLSWORTH
Introduction ............................................... . 53
Limitations to the Interpretation of the Gaze 55
vii
viii Contents
Visual Behavior and Social Interaction .......................... . 59
The Stare ............................................ . 60
Staring and A voidance 60
Staring and Approach 62
The Complexities of the "Appeasement" Gesture 64
Discussion and Speculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 69
Factors Affecting the Interpretation of Visual Behavior .... . . .. 70
Summary 73
References 73
CHAPTER 4
Patterns of Emotions and Emotion Communication in "H ostility"
and Aggression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 77
CARROLL E. IZARD
Affect, Communication, and Consciousness ...................... 80
Patterns of Affects in Anger, Disgust, Contempt, and Hostility 81
Intraindividual Emotion Communication in Hostility . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 85
Emotion Expression, Interindividual Emotion Communication, and
Aggression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 91
Studies of Rhesus Monkeys with Sectioned Facial Nerves 94
Studies of Mother-Infant and Peer Interactions in a Playpen
Apparatus ........................................... , 96
Summary 99
References 100
CHAPTER 5
Communication and Aggression in a Group ofYoung Chimpanzees .... 103
E. W. MENZEL, JR.
Coordination as a Directly Observable Phenomenon ............. . 106
Communication about Objects ............................... . 111
The "Group Split Threshold" ............................... . 113
The Unique Role of Food in Controlling Dispersion ............. . 116
Communication about Objects and Its Effect on Group Splitting 118
Amount and Distribution of Food as Determiners of Dispersion 119
Relations among Subgroups within a Group .................... . 125
Conclusions ............................................. . 129
References 131
Contents ix
CHAPTER 6
Nonverbal Expressions 01 Aggression and Submission in Social
Groups 01 Primates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 135
ROBERT E. MILLER
References 157
CHAPTER 7
Nonverbal Communication: The Effect 01 Affect on Individual and
Group Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 161
BENSON E. GINSBURG
The Problem: What Does an Animal Communicate and
How Can We Know? ....................................... 161
The Model: Social Behavior ofWolves ........................ 163
Prerequisites of Communication .......................... 164
Physiological Correlates of Communication: Inadequate Criteria . 165
The Body Language of Wolves: A Social Lexicon ........... 166
Communication, Pack Organization, and Population Control 167
The Executive Male: Sex without Issue .................... 168
The Pack as Kingmaker ................................. 168
Taming a Wolf ........................................ 169
The Role of Early Experience in Deterrnining Later Behavior 170
Behavioral Taxonomy: Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 171
Social Behavior and Breeding Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 172
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 172
CHAPTER 8
Anima!' s Delenses: Fighting in Predator-Prey Relations .. . . . . . . . . .. 175
STANLEYC. RATNER
The Framework of the Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 175
Comparative Method and Predator Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 177
Summary of the Analysis of Predator Defenses .............. 188
Relations between Predator Defense and Aggression .............. 188
References ............................................... 189
Index 191
CHAPTER 1
Language and Communication-II:
The View from '74
Harvey Sarles
Department of AnthropoJogy
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis. Minnesota
The study of aggression is a most important facet of modern behavioral
interests. Its understanding and control is necessary to ensure our very con
tinuity. It is apart of our existence which has nonetheless eluded deep under
standing in spite of its having attracted concern and attention in the political,
psychologieal, and philosophical traditions to which we are heir.
In the context of the ethological and comparative studies which have
surfaced in the recent past, it has gained a wider, perhaps newer, sense because it
appears to be an attribute of social animals in addition to man. We hope that we
can extrapolate from knowledge about other animals to some sort of deeper,
perhaps "biologieal, " insights into man' s nature and behavior.
While I share these hopes, I remain concerned about a number of issues or
ideas which an overzealous biologism can carry on its ideological wings. We are
in a paradoxical period where hard tissue and bodily form seem to be more
plastic than was suspected (Enlow, 1968), while behavior is claimed to be less
susceptible to change and learning than we had thought. As a person who has
come to these issues primarily as a behavioral field-oriented (human) linguist, I
am aware that we are heirs to curious traditions of human nature wh ich have
made us appear extranatural: "language," "mind, " and "rationality" being
some terms which encapsulate the essence of the human uniqueness arguments.
Lorenz, for example, defines natural human behavior as preceding reason,
language, and culture in his book, On Aggression (1966).
2 Harvey Sarles
My approach to thinking about issues of human nature and behavior in a
comparative framework has been through the metaphor of language. Some of the
current ideas I have fought; others I've attempted to bypass. Some seem to be
conceptual; i.e., earlier ideas of language have seemed so overwhelmingly
"self-evident" that the only way to transcend them is to rethink them in some
critical, historical context.
I believe that the so-called affective components of our nature are bound up
in the same or similar conceptual traditions and are fraught with the same
conceptual difficulties. To attempt to shed some light on the positions and ideas
that I find myself occupying, fighting, abandoning, rethjnking-Iet me review a
paper I had published in Current Anthropology several years ago (SarIes, 1969).
In this artic1e, I responded to a Science paper written by G. G. Simpson
(1966) in which his ultimate definition of human nature was directly linked to
language.
I c1aimed, among other things, that not only was Simpson's position
unnecessarily dualist, but that any definition of language was more suspect than
he or linguists of that era were willing to admit. Language is not in my view
either peculiarly human or peculiarly individual-but we are social interactional
creatures just as were our forebears.
Since that time, linguists' definition of language has indeed become open to
debate; the implicit issue of man's sole ownership of language has become
explicit, pushed especially by the work of the Gardners on chimpanzees (1969)
and by the increasing abandonment of linguists by psychologists (Salzinger,
1970).
My original paper was presented in two parts-the first being a critical
description of how human linguists and animal communication experts (callists)
have some similar and some surprisingly different ideas and methodologies, with
but little awareness of their assumptions and with a rather blind application of
these ideas to subjects that they may not fit at all. The second part was a
modemized program ofresearch based on Darwin's original outline for the study
of expression and emotions.
During the past several years I have thought and written about the variety of
subjects a good deal-some of my views have changed (especially on the nature
of faces and of the so-called insane). In the area of emotional expression, the
literature has developed considerably, pointing in two virtually contradictory
directions. The field of human ethology has gained a literature, if not exactly a
substance. In fact, there may be two fields splitting and emerging-one wh ich is
essentially psychological-individual, the other more anthropological-social-as
they tend to approach the same apparent subject matter from two quite different
perspecti ves .
In this chapter I wish to mirror the earlier paper and to consider the language
issues first; then I will point to some research directions especially from the
