My technique for photographing people unobserved: A dummy complete with prism is mounted in front of the lens so that I appear to be aiming in another direction. This enables me to take close-ups of people without their knowledge. Depicted are rickshaw coolies in Hong Kong, but hardly anyone spotted the trick, even in Europe.
 

One example of an innate mode of behavior (fixed-action pattern) in man is yawning. The biological significance of this expressive movement lies in its power to transmit mood. All social animals benefit if the life rhythm of group members – including their sleeping habits – is synchronized. Yawning is infectious, i.e., it transmits a sense of fatigue.
 

Another fixed-action pattern peculiar to man and most of the higher vertebrates is automatically glancing around during a meal. Civilized man has long ceased to be in danger of surprise attack by predators while eating, yet this involuntary movement persists in us, too. After every third or fourth bite the eyes dart momentarily from side to side.
 

Yet another fixed-action pattern is the human smile, which innately allays aggressive tendencies in other human beings, discloses a readiness to make contact, and arouses goodwill. The smile of a baby when suckled produces a strong reaction in the mother, reinforces her bond with the child – her "mother love." As the child develops, it learns to employ this facial signal at need, in order to secure goodwill or the fulfillment of a wish.
 

The basic movements of flirting are also innate in the human being and common to women the world over. These consist in a smile of provocation and invitation followed by a "bashful" lowering of the eyes, a turning away, withdrawal, and apparent tendency toward flight. Visual contact is then resumed, and the ambivalent motor sequence may be repeated. (Unobserved slow-motion film of a Turkana tribeswoman flirting. Six seconds elapsed between the first and fourth frames.)
 

Another fixed-action pattern (innate sequence of movements), which we covertly filmed in slow motion in various parts of the world, is the "ocular greeting." The smile is coupled with an abrupt arching of the eyebrows. The sequence reproduced here, which was filmed by Eibl-Eibesfeldt, illustrates this facial signal of goodwill in a native whose tribe had first come into contact with white men only two years before. Quite obviously, it could not have been acquired by imitation of other races.
 

The same facial signal in a Frenchwoman and (overleaf) a Samoan. The whole process was very rapid. In all three cases the eyebrows were raised for only .16 second. Some leading American psychologists still support the erroneous view that everything including facial expression – is acquired by learning and imitation. Consequently, they also claim that anything can be instilled into man by education. Ethological research – and our films – refute this beyond all reasonable doubt.
 

Unobserved photographs of a South American Indian woman who had lost her child in a crowd. The expressive movements indicating helplessness, sorrow, and despair are likewise identical all over the world: They are innate. An actor would find it hard to reproduce such expressions with the same power of conviction.
 

Dismay at the receipt of bad news, portrayed by a Japanese actress. The actor seeks to emphasize typical features and transmit "supernormal stimuli": a tense facial expression, downward-curving lips, a furrowed brow, a suggestion of weeping and suppressed sobs.
 

Chinese woman in a fury: movements conveying an intention to bite and strike. Opposite: Ritualized fury in the classical Japanese theater. The baring of the eyeteeth is a minatory signal inherited from our animal forebears, whose canines were more strongly developed. The erstwhile weapon has regressed, but the fixed-action pattern survives.
 

Man extended his body by means of "artificial organs" – initially weapons, clothes, articles of jewelry, tools, etc. This Turkana warrior from northern Kenya wears an unusual artificial organ on his belt: It functions during the day as a stool, at night as a headrest designed to preserve his elaborate hairstyle intact.