Sunday, September 04, 2011
A question about eyes and a psychological theory
If non-verbal communication, including the communication of emotional and social information through the eyes and facial expressions is a thing that females are especially good at and naturally inclined to do, as is suggested by the theories about sex differences and empathy and social behaviour that have been popularized by autism researcher Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen, then why is the wearing of dark sunglasses which obscure the eyes and parts of the face so very popular among women these days? When I look around at gatherings of Australian middle-class mothers in their 30's and 40s in suburbs close to where I live, I see that the majority of them wear dark sunglasses when they are out and about in daily life, regardless of the weather or level of UV radiation. Don't they want to talk with their eyes? Why wont they let other people read their minds in their eyes? Aren't they keen to share, to participate socially and be emotionally open with a bit of non-verbal communication? Are they aloof or autistic or something? Why are they happy to have "the windows of the soul" obscured with dark tinting so much of the time?
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8 comments:
Maybe they increasingly feel like they have something to hide.
Do you think it's something to do with Facebook and the fuss about face recognition technology?
I'm not very good at guessing motivations of humans but perhaps it is to cover crows feet or just following some random fashion . My association of sunglasses for purposes other then 'sun" is seeing famous people wear them to hide their identities so perhaps people are getting less interested in letting people see them for who they are or to tired to fake being nice when they don't feel like it . I think it's become "common information from tv show trivia" that a real smile is done with wrinkles around the eyes. so perhaps the sunglasses help hide when your faking it ?
That's quite a complex explanation. Could be true. I'm so far from the in-crowd that I can barely quess at their motivations.
I've actually been observing humans from about as young as I have memories.I thought of them as insects with less interesting colors and exoskeletons . I'd probably like more of them if they had fur and liked being petted but they are an interesting puzzle when I'm in the mood for a puzzle .
I'd assumed it was just a fashion.
Your question did make me laugh, though! "Why won't they let other people read their minds in their eyes," ha!
@krex - I also thought your comment about people being like insects with less interesting colors was hilarious.
I guess it could be just fashion. It seems more than a bit absurd to me that a Muslim women wearing a hijab is more facially expressive and identifiable than many Aussie Mums wearing their dark sunnies in mid-winter as though they are papparazzi-hunted celebrities.
I wonder whether we will see Aussie Muslim women assimilating by wearing dark sunglasses with their hijabs? Could be practical issues with that fashion innovation.
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