Their ability to classify some facial expressions as contempt versus the primary emotions of anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, fear, or surprise showed that across cultures, general contempt is universally understood (with level of agreement equating to 75%). In this study, citizens of West Sumatra, Indonesia, viewed photos of American, Japanese, and Indonesian people. Įkman and Friesen (1986) identified a specific facial expression that observers in ten different cultures, both Western and non-Western, agreed signaled contempt.

Solomon places contempt on the same continuum as resentment and anger, and he argues that the differences between the three are that resentment is anger directed towards a higher-status individual anger is directed towards an equal-status individual and contempt is anger directed towards a lower-status individual. It is classified among Paul Ekman's seven basic emotions of contempt, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. It is the past participle of contemnere and from con- intensive prefix + temnere 'to slight, scorn'. The word originated in 1393 in Old French contempt, contemps, from the Latin word contemptus meaning 'scorn'. The woman has been interpreted as a prostitute (who is disdaining the inadequate coin proffered by the fashionable gentleman getting his shoes shined at left).Ĭontempt is a pattern of attitudes and behaviour, often towards an individual or a group, but sometimes towards an ideology, which has the characteristics of disgust and anger.

Scorn definition