Contempt

Contempt, not classified among Paul Ekman's six basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, is a mixture of disgust and anger. The word originated in 1393, from the Latin word contemptus meaning "scorn". It is the past participle of contemnere and from com- intensive prefix + temnere "to slight, scorn". The origin is uncertain. Contemptuous appeared in 1529.

Robert C. 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 toward a higher-status individual; anger is directed toward an equal-status individual; and contempt is anger directed toward a lower-status individual.

Cultural context

Ekman and Friesen (1986) identified a specific facial expression that observers in ten different cultures, both Western and non-Western, agreed signaled contempt. In this study, citizens of West Sumatra, Indonesia, were given photos of American, Japanese, and Indonesian peoples. 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%). “An expression in which the corner of the lip is tightened and raised slightly on one side of the face (or much more strongly on one side than the other) signaled contempt.” This study showed that contempt, as well as the outward expression of contempt, can be pointed out across Western and Non-Western peoples when contrasted with other primary emotions.

Disdain (disambiguation)

Disdain is a feeling of contempt or scorn.

Disdain may also refer to:

Disdain (EP)

Bù Xiè (Chinese: 不屑 "Disdain") is Taiwanese Mandopop artist Alien Huang's (aka Xiao Gui 小鬼) Mandarin solo debut EP album. It was released on 17 July 2009 by Rock Records. A second edition, Disdain (Limited Edition) (不屑 限量版) on 16 September 2009 with a bonus DVD containing two music videos and behind-the-scene footage.

In this EP Alien collaborated with label mates, rock band Fun4 (小樂團). The tracks "鬼混" (Fooling Around) was previously released in 2008 as a promotional single with Alien's second illustration book "鬼怒穿", and together with "鬼打牆" (Demon Walls) are rock tracks. The title track "不屑" (Disdain) is a rock ballad.

Track listing

Bonus DVD

References

External links