The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
What Are Emotion Expressions For?
Abstract
Although research on the nonverbal expression of emotion has played a prominent role throughout psychology during the past two decades—including an instrumental role in the development of contemporary evolutionary psychology—little research has focused on the evolutionary origins and functions of the emotional expressions themselves. However, recent findings from psychophysical, comparative, social, and cross-cultural psychology are converging to produce a compelling functionalist account, suggesting that emotional expressions serve critical adaptive purposes. Most of these studies have narrowly focused on single emotions—an approach that has been very useful for providing new insights about specific expressions but not for developing a broader understanding of why humans universally display and recognize distinct emotions. Here we unify these disparate findings in order to illuminate this fundamental form of social communication.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Citations
Cites
The expression of the emotions in man and animals.
Darwin, C. D. (1872) · J. Murray eBooks · doi:10.1037/10001-000 · Cited by 12,120
An argument for basic emotions
Ekman, P. (1992) · Cognition and Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699939208411068 · Cited by 9,646
Fears, phobias, and preparedness: toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning
Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.108.3.483 · Cited by 3,147 · cited 2×
“Conditioning studies have shown that anger and fear expressions are more easily paired with aversive stimuli than are happiness expressions—suggesting an evolved preparedness to form cognitive associations between threat-signaling expressions and threatening concepts (see Ohman & Mineka, 2001).”
BackgroundTARGET ARTICLE: "Putting the Self Into Self-Conscious Emotions: A Theoretical Model"
Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1207/s15327965pli1502_01 · Cited by 1,462
Self-citationThe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Darwin, C. D. (2013) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139833813 · Cited by 1,351
Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Yap, A. J. (2010) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797610383437 · Cited by 946
Maternal emotional signaling: Its effect on the visual cliff behavior of 1-year-olds.
Sorce, J. F., Emde, R. N., Campos, J. J., & Klinnert, M. D. (1985) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/0012-1649.21.1.195 · Cited by 885
Signs of appeasement: Evidence for the distinct displays of embarrassment, amusement, and shame.
Keltner, D. (1995) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.3.441 · Cited by 718 · cited 1×
“Second, humans across disparate cultures (including the congenitally blind) have been found to spontaneously display these expressions in status-relevant situations (i.e., success and failure; e.g., Keltner, 1995; Lewis, Alessandri, & Sullivan, 1992; Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008).”
BackgroundIn bad taste: evidence for the oral origins of moral disgust
Chapman, H. A., Kim, D. A., Susskind, J. M., & Anderson, A. K. (2009) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1165565 · Cited by 691
The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays
Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, D. (2008) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0802686105 · Cited by 637
Self-citation
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Eibl-Eibesfeldt I., 1989, Human ethology
- Keltner D., 1998, Interpersonal approaches to shame, 78
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 301–322 of 322
Triumph - not pride - is the main emotion expressed after success in non-interactive sportsPreprint
Krippl, M., & Königsmark, V. (2025) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/vczs7_v1
The Socio-Evolutionary Development of the Moral Outrage
Campen, C. (2025) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-658-48028-8_18
Additional file 1 of Depressive symptoms and visual attention to others’ eyes in healthy individuals
Suslow, T., Hoepfel, D., Kersting, A., & Bodenschatz, C. M. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.25357805
Schulz, L., & Wu, Y. (2020) · OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)
Eyes and Facial Expressions: Wordless Means of Communication
Rozov, N. S. (2026) · World-systems evolution and global futures · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-06466-0_11
Ahmed, W., Mahmood, R., & Mahmood, S. (2026) · Journal of Sexual Aggression · doi:10.1080/13552600.2026.2630702 · Cited by 1
المعرفة العاطفية وعلاقتها ببعض المتغيرات لدى طلبة المرحلة الإعدادية
عمر, ب. خ., & محمد, ا. خ. ا. (2025) · Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities · doi:10.25130/jtuh.32.10.2025.11
The interplay of action selection and attention allocation in response to social threat
Vilarem, E. (2017) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/3c09a85dz8323z47dazb88bz6d66af348726
Perception des émotions chez les petits ruminants
Bellegarde, L. (2017) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/1f98fe1ezbb04z4e97zaa8ezdf734d486106
Guillou, L. (2021) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/ae82c1b9z888cz4296za25bz952248b9ad8b
Examining the utility of digital phenotyping for the prediction of intrusive experiences
Meaney, T., Yadav, V., Galatzer‐Levy, I. R., & Bryant, R. A. (2026) · European Journal of Psychotraumatology · doi:10.1080/20008066.2026.2646126
Whole-brain network dynamics underlying intolerance of uncertainty
Kim, W., Kim, N., Lee, S., & Kim, M. J. (2026) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.122091
Villain, A. S., & Briefer, E. F. (2026) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781394182237.ch4 · Cited by 2
How and why emotions are expressed
Nikolić, M., Kret, M. E., Nummenmaa, L., & Sauter, D. A. (2026) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2025.0130
The interpersonal and intrapsychic functions of the pride expression
Tracy, J. L., & Witkower, Z. (2026) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2025.0149
Self-citationEmotional Expressions in Native vs. English Speech: A Study in Affective and Linguistic Computing
Kalateh, S., Farhadighalati, N., Estrada-Jimenez, L. A., Nikghadam-Hojjati, S., & Barata, J. (2026) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-20631-2_17
Changing contributions of emotion and reward information to learning through adolescence
Phaneuf-Hadd, C. V., Phelps, E. A., & Somerville, L. H. (2026) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2616364123
The Lateralisation of Emotion in Social Mammals
Milligan, A. D. S. (2013) · Stirling Online Research Repository (University of Stirling)
Metadata
- Authors
- Shariff, A. F., & Tracy, J. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Oregon (US)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Venue
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2011-12
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 395-399
- ISSN
- 0963-7214 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8721
- OpenAlex
- W2096186423
- Cited by
- 322
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 16.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Current Directions in Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Keywords
- emotional expression, nonverbal communication, evolutionary origins of emotion, adaptive function of emotions, emotion recognition, social communication
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
