In Your Face Why is this man so angry? Wedon't know the reason, but we can see the emotion in his face.Whatever cultureyou have, you can understand the feeling that he is expressing. Forty years ago, psychologistPaul Ekman of the University of California, San Francisco, became inter-ested in how people's faceshow their feelings. He took photographs of Americans expressing variousemo-tions. Then he showed them to the Fore people, who live in the jungle inNew Guinea.Most of the Fore had never seen foreign faces, but they easily understoodAmerican's expressions of anger, happiness, sadness,disgust, fear, andsurprise. Then Ekman did the sameexperiment in reverse. He showed pictures of Fore faces to Americans,and theresults were similar. Americans had no problems reading the emotions on theFore people's faces. Ekman's research gave powerful support to the theory thatfacial expressions for basic emotions are the same everywhere. He did moreresearch inJapan,Brazil, andArgentina, and got the samere-sults. According to Ekman, these sixemotions are universal because they are built into our brains. They developedto help us deal with things quickly that might hurt us. Some emotional triggersare universal as well. When something suddenly comes into sight, people feelfear, because it might be dangerous.But most emotional triggers are learned.For example, two people might smell newly cut grass. One reason spent wonderfulsummers in the country as a child, so the smell makes him happy. The otherperson remembers working very hard on a farm and being hungry, so he feels sad. Once we make an emotionalassociation in our brain, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to changeit. "Emotion is the least changeable part of the brain. " says Ekman.But we can learn to manage our emotions better. For instance, we can be moreaware of things that make us angry, and we can think before we react. There are many differencesbetween cultures, in their languages and customs. But a smile is exact-ly thesame everywhere. Paul Ekman studies people's faces in different cultures.