Alan Fridlund

Professor

Biography

Alan J. Fridlund is a social and clinical psychologist whose interests lie in human ethology (especially nonverbal communication), neuroethology, psychopathology, and sexology. He won the Distinguished Early Career Contribution Award of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, and was a member of the Faculty in Experimental Psychopathology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Human Facial Expression: An Evolutionary View (Academic Press, 1994), and with Dan Reisberg (Reed College) and Henry Gleitman (U. Penn.), the introductory text Psychology (6th Ed., Norton, 2003).

Research

My current research interests focus on how facial expressions affect social interaction, including interaction with both implicit others (inanimate and/or nonhuman ones we vest with mind and agency), and imaginary others (the people "in our heads").

Selected Publications

Gleitman, H., Fridlund, A. J., & Reisberg, D. (2003). Psychology (6th Ed.). New York: Norton.

Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Fridlund, A. J. (2002). The behavioral ecology view of smiling and other facial expressions. In M. Abel (Ed.), An empirical reflection on the smile. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.

Fridlund, A. J., and MacDonald, M. (1998). Approaches to Goldie: A field study of human response to canine juvenescence. Anthrozoös, 11, 95-100.

Fridlund, A. J. (1997). The new ethology of human facial expressions. In J. A. Russell & J. Fernandez-Dols (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 103-129). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fridlund, A. J., & Duchaine, B. (1996). “Facial Expressions of Emotion” and the delusion of the hermetic self. In R. Harré & W. G. Parrott, The emotions (pp. 259-284). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fridlund, A. J. (1992). Darwin's anti-darwinism and the Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. In K. T. Strongman (Ed.), International Review of Emotion (Vol. 2) (Pp. 117-137). New York: Wiley.

Fridlund, A. J. (1991). The sociality of solitary smiles: Effects of an implicit audience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 229-240.

Fridlund, A. J., & Loftis, J. M. (1990). Relations between tickling and humorous laughter: Preliminary support for the Darwin-Hecker hypothesis. Biological Psychology, 30, 141-150.