The Human Head Shake.

Man is a social animal. One expects society to influence human behavior. One might expect people from different societies to behave differently. One behavioral difference that I’ve noticed is that people from India tend to shake their head sideways when they do not agree with something and in expressing their disapproval of an event that they see transpiring. I’ve also observed that people of western origin shake their head back and forth in the same circumstances. Is there a reason why this difference exists? Here is one possible explanation.

Indian mothers feed their babies sitting on the floor, with their legs stretched out. The baby rests in the valley between the mothers leg and faces upwards. The object used to feed the baby which could be a spoon or the mother’s hand approaches the baby sideways. Quite often the baby needs to indicate to the mother that it does not want the food that it is being fed. Sometimes because the baby is just not ready for another mouthful and at other instances because the baby does not like the food. The baby in such a situation naturally expresses this by moving its head away from the feeding hand or spoon. Since the baby’s head rests on the mother’s legs, it is incapable of moving its head backwards. The baby moves its head sideways to communicate with the mother. This would condition the baby to move its head sideways to indicate no.

Western mothers, to the best of my knowledge, feed their babies on a high chair with the mother in front of the baby. The feeding hand or more likely the spoon approaches the baby from the front. The natural evasive action from the baby would be to move its head backwards and forwards. This would condition the baby to move its head backwards and forwards to indicate no.

It is quite likely that this behavior is carried into adult life and could actually also have been adopted by adults who observe this in their babies resulting in a “culture” which shakes the head sideways in one set of people and back and forth in others. Most languages use some form of “ma” and “pa” for the words that mean mother and father since babies appear to make these sounds much before other sounds.

I advance this “explanation” based on my observation of my daughter and what I know of western culture. It would be interesting to see if this is indeed true.