Paul Ekman facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Paul Ekman
Ekman in 2016
Born	February 15, 1934 (1934-02-15) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Died	November 17, 2025(2025-11-17) (aged 91) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Education	University of Chicago New York University (BA) Adelphi University (MA, PhD)
Known for	Microexpressions, Lie to Me
Spouse(s)	Mary Ann Mason
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology Anthropology
Doctoral advisor	John Amsden Starkweather

Paul Ekman (born February 15, 1934, died November 17, 2025) was an American psychologist. He was a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. He was a pioneer in studying emotions and how they connect to facial expressions. His amazing work helped us understand non-verbal communication better. In 2002, he was ranked among the top 100 most important psychologists of the 20th century.

His research helped restart the study of emotions in psychology. He also created new ways for researchers to study non-verbal communication. His early work looked into the physical changes that happen with emotions.

About Paul Ekman

His Early Life and Education

Paul Ekman was born in 1934 in Washington, D.C.. He grew up in several states, including New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and California. His father was a children's doctor, and his mother was a lawyer.

At first, Paul wanted to be a therapist. However, after serving in the army, he saw how research could help many people. This experience made him want to become a researcher instead.

Paul started college at the University of Chicago when he was just 15. He was very interested in how groups of people interact. He later earned his bachelor's degree from New York University in 1954.

His first research project looked at how people reacted in group therapy. He then got his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Adelphi University in 1958. His master's thesis focused on facial expressions and body movements.

Military Service and Career Beginnings

In 1958, Ekman joined the U.S. Army for two years. He worked as a chief psychologist at Fort Dix, New Jersey. There, he studied psychological changes in soldiers during training.

After the army, Ekman continued his research on nonverbal behavior. He received a special grant in 1963 to study how people communicate without words. This funding supported his important work for 40 years.

In 1972, he became a professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). A college friend encouraged him to focus more on facial expressions. He wrote his famous book, Telling Lies, which was published in 1985.

He retired from UCSF in 2004. After retiring, he started the Paul Ekman Group. This group continues to share his knowledge about emotions and expressions.

Paul Ekman in Media

Paul Ekman's work has appeared in many popular media projects. In 2001, he worked with actor John Cleese on a BBC documentary called The Human Face.

His research was a big part of the TV show Lie to Me. The main character, Dr. Lightman, was based on Paul Ekman. Ekman was a scientific advisor for the series. He helped the actors learn how to show different facial expressions accurately.

He also worked with Pixar for their 2015 film Inside Out. This movie explores emotions in a fun way. Ekman even wrote a guide for parents to use the movie to talk about emotions with their kids.

His Impact and Legacy

Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in 2009. In 2014, he was ranked among the most influential psychologists of the 21st century. His contributions helped people understand compassion and peaceful human relationships.

Paul Ekman passed away on November 17, 2025, at his home in San Francisco, California. He was 91 years old.

Understanding Emotions and Expressions

How We Measure Nonverbal Communication

Ekman was very interested in how we communicate without speaking. This is called nonverbal communication, like body language and facial expressions. His first publication in 1957 talked about how hard it was to measure these behaviors.

He found that facial muscles create many different expressions. He discovered that humans can make over 10,000 facial expressions. About 3,000 of these are related to emotions. He developed ways to measure and understand these movements.

Emotions Around the World

Long ago, Charles Darwin thought emotions were the same for all humans. But in the 1950s, many believed that facial expressions were learned from culture. Margaret Mead, an anthropologist, studied this idea.

Ekman studied people from many different cultures, both Western and Eastern. He found that people everywhere recognized the same basic emotions. These universal emotions include anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise.

He even studied a remote tribe in Papua New Guinea. These people had not seen media from other cultures. They still recognized the same basic facial expressions. This showed that some emotions are truly universal.

Ekman also found that cultures have "display rules." These rules teach us when and to whom we should show certain emotions. In the 1990s, Ekman added more emotions to his list. These included amusement, contentment, embarrassment, excitement, guilt, pride, relief, satisfaction, sensory pleasure, and shame.

Tools for Studying Facial Actions

Ekman created tools to help study facial expressions. One tool was the Pictures of Facial Affect (POFA). It used photos of actors showing universal emotions. This helped researchers study emotion recognition worldwide.

Later, he made the Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE). This set included more diverse faces. In 1978, Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS).

FACS describes every observable facial movement. Each movement is called an "action unit" (AU). All facial expressions can be broken down into these basic AUs.

Other tools like the MicroExpressions Training Tool (METT) were also created. METT helps people spot very quick, subtle emotional expressions. This tool can help people with Asperger's or autism understand emotions better.

The Subtle Expression Training Tool (SETT) teaches how to recognize tiny expressions. These small expressions might show up in just part of the face.

Detecting Deception

Ekman also studied why people lie and how to spot lies. He became interested in this during his clinical work. He reviewed videos of people's facial expressions while they were lying.

He found "microexpressions," which are very brief facial movements. These microexpressions can sometimes show a person's true feelings. He tested 20,000 people to see who could spot lies without training.

Only about 50 people had this natural ability. He called these people "Truth Wizards." Ekman also looked for verbal clues when people lied. For example, he noticed that a former president used "distancing language" when not telling the truth.

Key Contributions to Psychology

Ekman's research greatly changed how we understand emotions. He showed that emotions are both natural and learned from our culture. He explored how different emotions affect our bodies and brains. His work helped create the field of "affective neuroscience."

He also found that making a facial expression can actually make you feel that emotion. He taught us that emotions come in "families." For example, there are many ways to show anger, like mild annoyance or intense rage. These variations show how strong an emotion is or how it's being controlled.

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