With the 2010 FIFA World cup taking place at this very moment, the world’s greatest soccer athletes are showcasing not only their amazing athletic ability, but also their raw, uncut emotions.
Dr. Matsumoto’s study of athletes in the 2004 Olympic Games suggested that “expressions occur in relation to emotionally evocative contexts in people of all cultures, that these expressions correspond to the facial expressions of emotion, that expressions provide information that can reliably differentiate the antecedent situations that produced them, and that expressions that occur without inhibition are different than those that occur in social and interactive settings”.
Since emotions are immediate, automatic and involuntary reactions to events that are important to us, athletes in high stakes situations are usually unable to control their facial expressions of emotion. With only 8 nations left in the tournament, we’ve seen many teams experience the true thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
Take a look at the photo gallery of the FIFA World Cup to see some shots of athletes making great faces.
© Orlando Florin Rosu | Dreamstime.com