Foundation
The Techniques and Methodologies utalised and taught are based on decades work done by pioneers in the schools of Anthropology, Psychology , Neurology, Sociology and Non-Verbal communication.
Paul Ekman
(born February 15, 1934) is a psychologist who has been a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He is considered one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century. The background of Ekman’s research analyzes the development of human traits and states over time (Keltner, 2007). The character Cal Lightman (played by Tim Roth) of the television series Lie to Me is loosely based on Dr. Ekman and his work.
Biography
Ekman was born in 1934 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Newark, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and Southern California. He is the son of a pediatrician.
He received a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1971, which was renewed in 1976, 1981, 1987, 1991, and 1997. For over forty years, NIMH supported his research through fellowships, grants, and awards.
In 2001, Ekman collaborated with John Cleese for the BBC documentary series The Human Face. He retired in 2004 as professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). From 1960 to 2004 he worked at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute.
He was named one of the top Time 100 most influential people in the May 11, 2009 edition of Time magazine.
Work
Ekman’s work on facial expressions had its starting point in the work of psychologist Silvan Tomkins.[3] Ekman showed that contrary to the belief of some anthropologists including Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and thus biological in origin. Expressions he found to be universal included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. Findings on contempt are less clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion and its expression are universally recognized.
In a research project along with Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan, called the Wizards Project (previously named the Diogenes Project), Ekman reported on facial “microexpressions” which could be used to assist in lie detection. After testing a total of 15,000 people from all walks of life, he found only 50 people that had the ability to spot deception without any formal training. These naturals are also known as “Truth Wizards”, or wizards of deception detection from demeanor.
He developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to taxonomize every conceivable human facial expression. Ekman conducted and published research on a wide variety of topics in the general area of non-verbal behavior. His work on lying, for example, was not limited to the face, but also to observation of the rest of the body.
In his profession he also uses verbal signs of lying. When interviewed about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he mentioned that he could detect that former President Bill Clinton was lying because he used distancing language.
Ekman has contributed much to the study of social aspects of lying, why we lie, and why we are often unconcerned with detecting lies. He is currently on the Editorial Board of Greater Good magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley. His contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships. Ekman is also working with Computer Vision researcher Dimitris Metaxas on designing a visual lie-detector.
Emotion classification
Ekman devised a list of basic emotions from cross-cultural research on the Fore tribesmen of Papua New Guinea. He observed that members of an isolated culture could reliably identify the expressions of emotion in photographs of people from cultures with which the Fore were not yet familiar. They could also ascribe facial expressions to descriptions of situations. On this evidence, he concluded that the expressions associated with some emotions were basic or biologically universal to all humans. The following is Ekman’s (1972) list of basic emotions:
However in the 1990s Ekman expanded his list of basic emotions, including a range of positive and negative emotions not all of which are encoded in facial muscles. The newly included emotions are:
- Amusement
- Contempt
- Contentment
- Embarrassment
- Excitement
- Guilt
- Pride in achievement
- Relief
- Satisfaction
- Sensory pleasure
- Shame
As a researcher and an authority, Dr. Ekman had a steadfast rule that he and his associates would not comment on public officials, those seeking public office, litigants, or those with impending litigation.
Educational innovations
Paul Ekman was recently featured in Greater Good Magazine’s latest issue on Trust. In this issue, Ekman and daughter Eve are interviewed on parent-child trust. The main topic of the interview focuses on the benefits of trusting your children, how to encourage trustworthy behavior, and what it takes to build trust between parents and children. Ekman is a contributor to Greater Good Magazine, Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley.
Desmond John Morris
(born 24 January 1928, Purton, north Wiltshire)[1] is a British zoologist and ethologist, but is also known as a surrealist painter and popular author.
Life
Morris was educated at Dauntsey’s School, an independent school in West Lavington, Wiltshire. After military service, he attended the University of Birmingham where he graduated in 1951 with a First Class Honours Degree in Zoology. In 1954, he was awarded a D.Phil. from Oxford University for his thesis on the Reproductive Behaviour of the Ten-spined Stickleback, supervised by Nobel Laureate Niko Tinbergen. He was employed by the Zoological Society of London as Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo, eventually leaving in 1966 in frustration about stagnation at the zoo.
He is sometimes wrongly stated to be a relative of Welsh entertainer Johnny Morris, best remembered for presenting the BBC television series Animal Magic, but this is not the case.
In the media
Morris first came to public attention in the 1950s as a presenter of the ITV television programme Zoo Time,[ but achieved worldwide fame in 1967 with his book The Naked Ape. The book is an unabashed look at the human species, notable for its focus on humanity’s animal-like qualities and our similarity with apes, and for explaining human behaviour as largely evolved to meet the challenges of prehistoric life as a hunter-gatherer. Reprinted many times and in many languages, it continues to be a best-seller.
His later studies, books and television shows have continued this focus on human behaviour, explained from a bluntly zoological point of view. This approach itself, and his specific conclusions, have often attracted controversy
Art
In addition to his scientific pursuits, he is a surrealist artist. His work has been exhibited alongside works by Spanish painter Joan Miró and contributed significantly to the British Surrealist movement. He had his first solo show in 1948, and has shown regularly since then. In 1957, he curated an exhibition of chimpanzee paintings and drawings at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, including paintings by a young chimpanzee called Congo. Details from various of Morris’s paintings can be seen on the cover art of early editions of Richard Dawkins‘s books The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker.
Morris was the executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London from 1967-68.
Film adviser
Morris oversaw the creation of the gestural and body language for the Paleolithic human characters in the 1981 film Quest for Fire.
Eric Berne
(May 10, 1910 – July 15, 1970) was a Canadian-born psychiatrist best known as the creator of transactional analysis and the author of Games People Play.
Background and education
Eric was born on May 10, 1910 as Eric Lennard Bernstein in Montreal, Canada. He and his sister Grace, who was five years younger than Eric, were the children of a physician and a writer, David and Sara Gordon Bernstein. David Bernstein died in 1921, and the children were raised by their mother.
Bernstein attended McGill University, graduating in 1931 and earning an M.D. in 1935. While at McGill he wrote for several student newspapers using pseudonyms. He followed graduation with a residency in psychiatry at Yale, where he studied psychoanalysis under Dr. Paul Federn. He completed his training in 1938 and became an American citizen in 1939.
In 1943 he changed his legal name to Eric Berne. He continued to use pseudonyms, such as Cyprian St. Cyr (“Cyprian Sincere”), for whimsical articles in the Transactional Analysis Bulletin.
Berne’s training was interrupted by World War II and his service in the Army Medical Corps. After working at Bushnell Army Hospital in Ogden, Utah, he was discharged in 1945.
Clinical work
After the war, Berne resumed his studies under Erik Erikson at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and practiced at Mt. Zion Hospital.
In addition to technical papers on psychoanalysis, he published The Mind in Action in 1947. He became a group therapist attached to several hospitals in San Francisco. He also began to further extend of the Ego State Model of Dr. Federn.
Berne’s work began to diverge from the mainstream of psychoanalytic thought. He published his work in several technical journals, but met with largely negative reactions. His break became formal in 1949 when he was rejected for membership in the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.
Intuition
Berne wrote a series of papers and articles on intuition, describing in one popular exposition his apparently uncanny ability to guess the civilian occupation of soldiers from just a few moments conversation with them. His musings on the faculty of intuition led to his groundbreaking work on transactional analysis.
Transactional analysis
Berne mapped interpersonal relationships to three ego-states of the individuals involved: the Parent, Adult, and Child state. He then investigated communications between individuals based on the current state of each. These interpersonal interactions he called transactions; certain patterns of transactions which popped up repeatedly in everyday life he called games.
His seminar group from the 1950s developed the term transactional analysis (TA) to describe therapies based on his work. By 1964, this expanded into the International Transactional Analysis Association. While still largely ignored by the psychoanalytic community, many therapists have put his ideas in practice.
In the early 1960s he published both technical and popular accounts of his conclusions. His Structures and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups in 1963 examined the same analysis in a broader context than one-on-one interaction.
Games People Play
In 1964 Berne published Games People Play which became an enormous bestseller and made Berne famous. The book presented clear, everyday examples of the way in which human beings get caught up in the games they play. Berne gave these games memorable titles such as “Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch,” “Wooden leg,” “Yes, but…,” and “Let’s you and him fight.”
In Berne’s explanation of transaction as games, when the transaction is a zero-sum game, e.g. one must win at the other’s expense, the person who benefits from a transaction (wins the game) is referred to as White, and the victim is referred to as Black.
Some of this terminology became a part of popular American vocabulary.
