What is the evolutionary value of blushing? It seems not to be to our advantage to do it, to involuntarily reveal our inner emotions. If we're trying to manipulate or lie, actions in furtherance of individual goals as opposed to the goals of others, blushing would not seem to be helpful. And yet everyone blushes, except the psychopath.
Interpretation
Blushing reveals our true emotions, highlighting a conflict between honesty and manipulation.
Frans De Waal’s quote examines the seemingly paradoxical nature of blushing as an involuntary emotional response that reveals our true feelings, which can be seen as a disadvantage when one is attempting to deceive or manipulate others. Despite its lack of apparent evolutionary advantage, the fact that all humans blush, save for psychopaths, suggests that it plays a significant role in our social interactions and may reflect empathy and honesty, key components of forming trust and connections within a community.
In practice
During a psychology class discussion on emotional expressions and their social implications.
As in a Russian doll, however, the outer layers always contain an inner core. Instead of evolution having replaced simpler forms of empathy with more advanced ones, the latter are merely elaborations on the former and remain dependent on them. This also means that empathy comes naturally to us. It is not something we only learn later in life, or that is culturally constructed.
Sometimes I read about someone saying with great authority that animals have no intentions and no feelings, and I wonder, 'Doesn't this guy have a dog?'
Experiments with animals have long been handicapped by our anthropocentric attitude: We often test them in ways that work fine with humans but not so well with other species.
Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than _x000D_ bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral.
If you look at human society, it is very easy, of course, to compare our warfare and territoriality with the chimpanzee. But that's only one side of what we do. We also trade, we intermarry, we allow each other to travel through our territory. There's an enormous amount of cooperation.
Human morality is unthinkable without empathy.
I never had much interest in being a child. As a way of being it seemed flat, failed to engage.
I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.
I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.
In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. ... My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known - no wonder, then, that I return the love.
How quickly passes away the glory of this world.
If every small nation with a border dispute believes they can go ahead and launch a pre-emptive war and that it will be approved by the greatest power, that is a very dangerous thing.
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