And The Winner Is...
Once More, With Feeling
Have you ever noticed that men are not as emotionally sensitive as women? (If you’re male you probably haven’t, because that would require paying attention to someone else’s feelings for once, wouldn’t it?) It turns out there may be a reason much simpler than a patriarchal society that punishes men for expressing emotional connections, although you can’t write that one off. It may be the binkies.
In three separate studies of pacifiers and emotional sensitivity, researchers publishing in Basic And Applied Social Psychology make a strong case that in boys (but, for some reason, not girls) sucking on a pacifier impairs the reflective changes in facial expression needed to learn how to interpret others’ emotions. Next time some guy gives you a blank stare, just imagine a binkie in his mouth, then look away before you start to snicker and he asks you what’s so funny.
Tons of psychological research shows that when we listen to someone else talk we use our own facial expressions to help us understand how they feel. For example, if a friend tells you her dog is sick, your eyebrows tilt up in the middle, and the corners of your mouth turn down to reflect her sadness. If your brother tells you about his promotion, your eyes open wide and you smile, to better share his joy. If your mom tells you she just finished watching a Hoarders marathon, you squint and look away, hoping she can’t tell you think she’s getting senile. Just like adults who have had Botox injections, male infants seem less able to process emotional input when their mouths are paralyzed by pacifiers. This may have a lifelong effect on their emotional development, causing them to form weaker attachments as adults and, in the case of some Emmy judges, to favor Wizards Of Waverly Place over the vastly superior Degrassi. I mean, really?!
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).
