It's intriguing that while English has more words than any other language - it suffers from a relative lack of words which nuance emotion - particularly positive emotions.
Coined by the Italian Psychologist, Isabella Poggi - "Fiero" is a term describing the unique emotion experienced in moments after great accomplishment. Of course fiero can be experienced in almost any field of human endeavor - yet it's most predictable and witnessed by those on the athletic field and thus here it is commonly photographed.
In each of these photos there is one American Woman with a facial expression, which if isolated and removed from the rest of the photo, we would label them as pain, anger, fear or even violent aggression (Abby Wambach [20] in the first, the second image Tobin Heath [17] and in the third Lauren Holiday [12]). All of these athletes are in the midst of emotionally processing the events - while their surrounding teammates (Kelley O’Hara [5], Carli Lloyd [10] and Ali Krieger [11]) are a few seconds further down this natural emotional pathway. Their faces have progressed and are expressing sincere and pure joy which most everyone will recognize.
Thank you Dr. Poggi.
Congratulations to the U.S. Women's National Team - the 2015 FIFA World Cup Champions.
See also:
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3236: A Common Body Language Disparity Display - Donald Trump
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3047: Ethan's Christmas wish comes true - Emotional Processing of Joy-Happiness
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3133: The Red Flag of Robert Durst's Body Language
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3155: Aaron Hernandez found Guilty - gets Life Sentence without possibility of Parole - Body Language Tells
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