Is eye rolling a physiological response like other types of body language or a cultural norm that we mimic because we are so used to seeing it?

Question

It’s my understanding that some types of body language are a physiological response, like crossing your arms might be your body’s natural defensive instinct or other behaviors like that. Eye rolling seems like a pretty instinctive behavior when we hear something that we find annoying, so I’m wondering if that’s a physiological response to messages sent from our Limbic system or just a cultural norm we have adopted?

In: Biology

Answer 1

One theory is that its a response to avoid directly confronting whatever is making us perform the act, if you want to look at it as a physiological response at least.