innate or learned

Question 1

evidence that body language is innate?

Answer 1

new born babies and sensory deprived children - not been able to observe or imitate the body language of others - must be instinctual

Question 2

evaluation - body language being innate?

Answer 2

looking at babies pre cry expression of sadness and also show the facial expressions surprised and disgust - show expressions before seeing them modelled, suggests that there expressions are innate

also been found in sensory deprived - facial expressions were learnt through imitation the children who are blind and not able to see cannot use facial expressions the same as the other babies can

Question 3

body language being learnt?

Answer 3

body language varies from person to person - some people are comfortable with invasion of personal space and use too much eye contact - vary body language depending on our social context, suggesting learnt behaviour

cross cultural research - showing that body language is used differently around the world, Japanese and Americans look at different part of the face in order to interpret emotion