If you ’ve ever had the discrete joy of sourcing neckcloth pic for any rationality , you ’ve likely come across a whole lot oflaughing women eating salads alone . But you ’ve also belike trip up upon a truckload of people scratching their head to symbolize confusion , mystifying thought and/or perhaps a high-risk case ofseborrheic dermatitis — dandruff . Scalp dispassion aside , how exactly did the head scratch come to symbolize intellectual processes ?
Some people believe that certain reflex gestures are plainly natural , expressive motions our caveman predecessors passed down to us . " One democratic explanation for any deal - to - head movements is that they ’re discomfited aggression — a retroversion to the born movements of our rock’n’roll - throwing ancestors,“wrote San Diego Reader columnist Matthew Alice . " If you watch a little child strike at something , he ’ll raise an arm over his head and bestow it forwards in an arc . It ’s a natural , uncontrived movement . Not much finesse , but for a troglodyte it go the job done . "
Alice also pointed to a possible anthropological explanation for question scratching : " When we ’re wrestle with some gnarly job , we have feelings of defeat , perhaps some ire , and before we know it , our hand flies up in the air . But sustain it . In these advanced times , it ’s not polite to bash the guy who asked the question . So alternatively we ward off tending from the apparent movement and scratch or rub our promontory or Kuki-Chin or cervix . " Interesting … and kind of a dreary interpretation of human behavior .
In a 2009 clause forPsychology Today , writer and former FBI Counterintelligence Agent Joe Navarro wrote , " When we are under stress , our brain requires a sure amount of hired hand to soundbox touching ( hand wringing , brow rubbing , temple massaging , brim touching , etc . ) . These pacifiers do to solace the somebody when there is damaging limbic stimulation [ fear , emphasis , etc ] . "
More recent enquiry seems to back up this focus theory and append another unexpected layer to the narrative . In a2017 study , which was print in the journal Scientific Reports , scientist who maintain 45 Macaca mulatta macaques found that scratching was more likely to happen in fourth dimension of heightened tenseness ( like standing in the bearing of high - ranking or unfamiliar monkeys ) . It turn out monkeys who scratched were significantly less likely to be attacked by those threatening strangers .
" As scratching can be a signaling of social stress , likely assailant might be avoiding attacking obviously stressed individuals because such individuals could behave erratically or be dampen by their focus , meaning an approach could be either risky or unnecessary,“lead author Jamie Whitehouse said in the field of study .
So while there ’s no undivided explanation for this head scratcher ( ugh , you knew that was coming — sorry ) , it appears dissemble out your anxiousness with this unimaginative tic could keep you in the good grace of others .
