Faces In The Face Of Death Essay
PSYC 100 6380 Introduction to Psychology (2145)
Class Project
06/20/2014
Faces in the Face of Death
Soldiers in war zones often experience life-threatening events that put their lives at stake. The present study examined how these exposures shape soldiers’ social behavior, manifested by recognition of facial expressions. In addition, we investigated how explicit awareness of one’s eventual death affects sensitivity to facial expressions. Veterans of elite military combat units were exposed to conditions of mortality or pain salience and later requested to label the emotions depicted in threatening and nonthreatening faces. Combat veterans were more accurate than noncombat veterans in identifying threatening expressions, both in mortality …show more content…
Combat veterans have come to refer to it as a “thousand yard stare.” A person’s ability to allow their mind to drift into a state of consciousness heightening their senses and awareness of what is going on around them allows them to detect danger before it is even present in the moment. Veterans tend to pick up on danger just by acknowledging the intentions of persons in a crowd or situation by simply reading them. The experiments conducted in this essay were able to prove a seasoned combat veterans ability to better associate a threat related facial expression than a non-combat veteran. I agree with the overall results of the hypothesis in this essay, and can personally verify a combat veteran’s ability to “read” people’s expressions better than a person who is not accustomed to the overwhelming feelings that will forever be engraved into your mind during a traumatic event. I have a personal vested interest in this article, and a deep understanding of the results. I agree whole heartedly with the author’s results and their conclusions throughout the experimentation processes. I feel that more experiments such as these should be conducted to allow for people to understand and develop new ways to assist with people suffering from traumatic events. The more understanding we can develop of how the brain is re-transmitting thoughts and feelings after being subjected to a traumatic incident can allow us to resolve these inconsistencies in thought and re-train a person’s way of thinking back to a healthier way of
Class Project
06/20/2014
Faces in the Face of Death
Soldiers in war zones often experience life-threatening events that put their lives at stake. The present study examined how these exposures shape soldiers’ social behavior, manifested by recognition of facial expressions. In addition, we investigated how explicit awareness of one’s eventual death affects sensitivity to facial expressions. Veterans of elite military combat units were exposed to conditions of mortality or pain salience and later requested to label the emotions depicted in threatening and nonthreatening faces. Combat veterans were more accurate than noncombat veterans in identifying threatening expressions, both in mortality …show more content…
Combat veterans have come to refer to it as a “thousand yard stare.” A person’s ability to allow their mind to drift into a state of consciousness heightening their senses and awareness of what is going on around them allows them to detect danger before it is even present in the moment. Veterans tend to pick up on danger just by acknowledging the intentions of persons in a crowd or situation by simply reading them. The experiments conducted in this essay were able to prove a seasoned combat veterans ability to better associate a threat related facial expression than a non-combat veteran. I agree with the overall results of the hypothesis in this essay, and can personally verify a combat veteran’s ability to “read” people’s expressions better than a person who is not accustomed to the overwhelming feelings that will forever be engraved into your mind during a traumatic event. I have a personal vested interest in this article, and a deep understanding of the results. I agree whole heartedly with the author’s results and their conclusions throughout the experimentation processes. I feel that more experiments such as these should be conducted to allow for people to understand and develop new ways to assist with people suffering from traumatic events. The more understanding we can develop of how the brain is re-transmitting thoughts and feelings after being subjected to a traumatic incident can allow us to resolve these inconsistencies in thought and re-train a person’s way of thinking back to a healthier way of