question: Why do humans instinctively put their hands to their heads when something goes horribly wrong?
comment: Not a psychologist, but I've heard that covering of the head or face is usually done when a person feels embarrassed/insecure so they feel concealed and protected from the outside world. I'm guessing this applies to cases where they are embarrassed for another person.
passages: Sometimes, when a person has suffered extreme physical or psychological trauma (including massive stress), they will assume the fetal position or a similar position in which the back is curved forward, the legs are brought up as tightly against the abdomen as possible, the head is bowed as close to the abdomen as possible, and the arms are wrapped around the head to prevent further trauma. This position provides better protection to the brain and vital organs than simply lying spread out on the ground, so it is clear as to why it is an instinctual reaction to extreme stress or trauma when the brain is no longer able to cope with the surrounding environment, and in essence "shuts down" temporarily.
   BULLET::::- Thumbing the nose (also known as "Anne's Fan" or "Queen Anne's Fan" and sometimes referred to as "cocking a snook"), a sign of derision in Britain made by putting the thumb on the nose, holding the palm open and perpendicular to the face, and wiggling the remaining fingers, often combined with sticking out the tongue.
  
  BULLET::::- Touching heads is a gesture to express positive emotions between friends, relatives, lovers etc.
   Sometimes humans will give off signs that will highlight confirmatory facts that otherwise can remain unapparent through the use of body communication. If an individual wishes for his message to be conveyed, he must mobilize his activity so that his message can be expressed during the interaction. For example, if an individual wishes to give the impression of being sure of their judgement, they will forgo the moment of thought. Instead, this individual will give an immediate decision which will demonstrate the audience that he is sure of his judgement. This is a practice that is used by many professionals such as lawyers, policemen, and doctors use in their work settings.
   The "mano po" gesture is usually followed by a response of "God bless you" or "May the Lord have mercy on you" by the elder; the sign of the cross may be made over the recipient. The latter response of "May the Lord have mercy on you" is used when the "pagmamano" is performed with both hands to ask an elder's pardon and forgiveness. With both hands, the younger person takes the elder's hands and lifts them to the forehead to formally ask forgiveness for an offence. This may be done whilst kneeling and weeping. This is the highest form of the "pagmamano".
   Touching heads
  
  Touching heads is a uniquely human emotional expression that does not occur in nonhuman primates. All races, age groups and both sexes of humankind interpret this behavior as an expression of positive emotions, such as love—including brotherly love, friendship etc.
   Similarly to the version in the Netherlands, a version in NW Ohio has participants first make the traditional signal - index finger to nose - but then put their finger tips together above their heads in the roof motion, declaring "tree!" when in position.
  
  A common variant in Portugal involves calling out "last one to touch the sky", before touching the roof of the mouth (literally, the "sky" of the mouth in Portuguese).
   The Babkin reflex occurs in newborn babies, and describes varying responses to the application of pressure to both palms. Infants may display head flexion, head rotation, opening of the mouth, or a combination of these responses. Smaller, premature infants are more susceptible to the reflex, with an observed occurrence in a child of 26 weeks gestation. It is named after the Russian physiologist, Boris Babkin.
  
  Section::::Parachute reflex.
   It has been discovered as a part of a research in the Weizmann Institute, that human handshakes serve as a means of transferring social chemical signals between the shakers. 
  
  It appears that there is a tendency to bring the shaken hands to the vicinity of the nose and smell them. They may serve an evolutionary need to learn about the person whose hand was shaken, replacing a more overt sniffing behavior, as is common among animals and in certain human cultures (such as Tuvalu, Greenland or rural Mongolia, where a quick sniff is part of the traditional greeting ritual).
   In South Korea, it is inappropriate to call the attention of someone with a palm-up arm wave. Instead, the proper way to wave to someone or call for attention is to wave vertically, making sure the palm of the hand is in a downward position. It is not uncommon to see waving amongst the younger population (in South Korea) to display their departure rather than bowing, which is the traditional way of greeting one another. Waving the hand outward towards the face is also used to grab the attention of a pet or child.
  
  Section::::Cultural interpretations.:European culture.
   Various sources have attributed the origin of the handshake, as an ancient sign of bravery and respect, to Lord Baden-Powell's encounter after battle with Prempeh I, or to earlier published works by Ernest Thompson Seton. There exist various versions of the Prempeh story, all centering on African warriors using the left hand to hold their shields and to lower it and shake the left hand of the person was to show they trusted each other.
   BULLET::::- Since the 1990s in North America, a similar gesture is used in "Talk to the hand". By showing the palm of the hand, with fingers spread, and saying "Talk to the hand... because the face ain't listenin is the equivalent of "You're wasting your breath" or "Shut up". Even before then, a common expression of displeasure was to "throw" one's hand.
   Traders usually flash the signals quickly across a room to make a sale or a purchase. Signals that occur with palms facing out and hands away from the body are an indication the gesturer wishes to sell. When traders face their palms in and hold their hands up, they are gesturing to buy.
   BULLET::::- A non-conscious reaction is seen in the human proprioceptive reflex, or righting reflex—in the event that the body tilts in any direction, the person will cock their head back to level the eyes against the horizon. This is seen even in infants as soon as they gain control of their neck muscles. This control comes from the cerebellum, the part of the brain affecting balance.
  
  Section::::Mechanisms.
   An early survey of head shake and other gestures was "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals", written by Charles Darwin in 1872. Darwin wrote to missionaries in many parts of the world asking for information on local gestures, and concluded that shaking head for "no" was common to many different groups.
  
  The gesture is possibly ancient in origin. In the biblical book of Job, there is a reference to it:
  
  4 I also could talk as you do, were you in my place. I could declaim over you, or wag my head at you;
   The gesture was given prominence in the 1967 British television series "The Prisoner", in which a number of unnamed characters are held captive in a village. Whenever these imprisoned villagers would take leave of each other, they did so with the phrase "Be seeing you", accompanied by the gesture held up in front of their own eye as a reminder that despite any pretenses of freedom, they were all prisoners. The gesture is also used as a greeting in the show without the "be seeing you" phrase. The series' lead actor Patrick McGoohan stated that the show had adopted the gesture from the sign of the fish used by early Christians.
   Raising one's hands is an encouraged option. There are many hadith that describe how Muhammad raised his hands during du'a. Some hadith describe him having raised his hands way up high in emergency situations. Many scholars agree that if it is not an extreme situation that Muhammad did not raise his hands above his head. The exact manner that many scholars in Islam describe how high the hands should be raised during a regular Du'a is up to the shoulders with palms placed together.
   The emphasis on the raised eyebrows and the rolling up of the eyes is such, that the actual nod of the head upwards has ended up being of secondary importance. A person can denote "no" by simply raising their eyebrows and rolling up their eyes, with the head staying completely still.
  
  Section::::As greeting.
   Finger gestures are commonly used in a variety of ways, from point at something to indicate that you want to show a person something to indicating a thumbs up to show everything is good.
  
  Also, in most cultures nodding your head signifies "Yes", which the book "The Definitive Book of Body Language" describes as submissive gesture to representing the conversation is going the direction of the person speaking. Interesting, the book explains that people who are born deaf can show a form of submissive gesture to signify "Yes".
  
  Section::::Manual vs. non-manual communicative gestures.
   BULLET::::- From Carolingian art until the Romanesque period, the hand may appear above the top of the cross in the Crucifixion of Jesus, pointing straight down. Sometimes it holds a wreath over Christ's head, as on the rear of the Ottonian Lothair Cross at Aachen Cathedral. The hand represents divine approval, and specifically acceptance of his sacrifice, and possibly also the storm mentioned in the gospels.
   In Greece, the single nod of the head down that indicates "yes" is often combined with closing the eyes simultaneously. This nod commonly also includes a very slight, almost unnoticeable, turn of the head to the left (or to the right).
  
  An early survey of nodding and other gestures was "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals", written by Charles Darwin in 1872. Darwin wrote to missionaries in many parts of the world asking for information on local gestures, and concluded that nodding for "yes" was common to many different groups.
   Section::::Closed Programs.:2014.
   In Naples the gesture has been long used to symbolize love and matrimony, as was custom in neighboring Greece, but specifically with the palm upturned, while the gesture made with a downturned palm represents a hand holding the scales of justice. Across Italy the gesture remained in use as one for making points in conversation when moved about to express discursive precision, but when held still in an upright position with fingers jutting skyward, it became an emblem of perfection.
   Facepalm
  
  A facepalm is the physical gesture of placing one's hand across one's face or lowering one's face into one's hand or hands, covering or closing one's eyes. The gesture is often exaggerated by giving the motion more force and making a slapping noise when the hand comes in contact with the face. The gesture is found in many cultures as a display of frustration, disappointment, exasperation, embarrassment, horror, shock, surprise, exhaustion, sarcasm, or incredulous disbelief.
  
  Section::::Origins.
   Because of the diffusion of responsibility, people feel that their need to intervene in a situation decreases as the number of other (perceived) witnesses increases. In an experiment that John Darley and Bibb Latané conducted in 1968, it was found that a subject was much less likely to help someone having a seizure when the subject thought that at least one other subject was also hearing the individual have a seizure. The subject's likeliness to help decreased with the number of other subjects (up to four) he or she thought were also listening to the seizure. Group size is a key factor to the diffusion of responsibility, as in a different study, it was additionally found that the probability of an individual volunteering to be a primary helper or leader also decreases as the size of the group grows 
   Section::::Closed Programs.:2013.
  