You probably think you’re in control of your facial expres-sions, but the fact is you have very little, if any, idea what your face is saying throughout the day .
The human face has many more muscles than any other animal, and they combine to create a complex range of emotional messages . The urge to create these messages is
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so strong we even perform them when we’re alone and there’s no one watching .
I What does your smile look like when you’re required to perform a social smile—that is, one that is pleasing or polite, rather than one that is natural and unforced?
I Is your mouth crooked? Does your smile reach your eyes? Do you show teeth or even part your lips?
I What’s your normal level of eye contact? How do you behave when you feel under pressure or intimidated?
I Where do your eyes tend to roam when you’re thinking? Do you stare straight ahead or upward?
I Do you ever frown without realizing it?
I What does your “screensaver” face look like? This is the expression you wear when you’re not putting your
“best face forward .” Do you look glum or angry?
Your face has three key modes:
1 . Performance . This is your normal “going out” face used for meeting, greeting, and general chit-chat scenarios .
2 . masking . This is the face you apply when trying to suppress negative expressions and replace them with something more polite or appropriate—for example, masking boredom by feigning interest, and so on . 3 . Screensaver . This is more than just a blank canvas
on which the other expressions are painted; your
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screensaver is the nearest there is to a natural facial expression . You’d likely start in screensaver mode as you prepare yourself for the day ahead . It’s the face you pull when you’re not pulling a face, although it’s a little more complex than that . As we get older our muscles tend to hold memory traces . These will tend to distort your screensaver face, meaning that without any bidding from you it’s altogether possible that your screensaver has become a frown or a scowl . It’s very rare that a screensaver is anything remotely resembling a smile . I see one woman regularly where I live and her face sports a smile when it’s in “resting” mode . I haven’t done a street survey on the effect her expression has on passersby, but I have a strong suspicion that they’re mildly troubled by it .
Imagine a camera strapped to the side of your head, filming your facial expressions all day . How much time would you spend performing, masking, or in screensaver mode?
yOUR SOcIAL PeRFORmAnce FAce
You think your face acts normally when you speak to friends, family, and colleagues? Then compare it to the face you wear when you first get out of bed in the morning . The better you know someone the more likely you are to
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be wearing your normal face when you deal with them, but when you speak to anyone from a friend to a total stranger chances are you’ll apply your social expression, what psychologists call “putting your best face forward .”
At work you will be required to use your performance face almost exclusively . Anyone not doing so will usually be deemed negative and moody, especially if they’re female . Women in business are expected to smile 80 percent of the time and most are compliant enough to do so . Hence the way women are often described using that awful word that is intended to be a compliment: bubbly!
If you work in a front-line, customer-facing post, you’ll probably be required to smile frequently . Otherwise your performed facial expression will probably range between polite, positive, listening, concerned, and keen . The higher up you are in the company the less pressure you could have to perform . Sir Richard Branson is one leading businessman who seems concerned with wearing his high-performance “smiley” face whenever he’s out in public .
There’s no dishonor in sporting a social performance face when you’re out and about . Your ancestors would have found it a lifesaver because scowling and giving other animals the evil eye can get an animal killed .
The changes to your facial expression will create huge changes in the way you are perceived . I’ll be talking about love and sex in chapter 9, but the “Look of Love” is one
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of the most radical changes there is, rendering your face almost unrecognizable by a softening of the features that ensures your partner will find you doubly attractive and fall in love with you .
Sadly, once you’ve been through the initial stages of attraction, love and lust, your face is likely to return to its “natural” expression when you’re with your partner . In many ways this relaxation of the features can be a relief, because you’re in that comfortable zone with them known as “being yourself .” Trust and comfort allows us to drop the social mask and display our true face to our partner . Unfortunately, that “true” face is rarely the most attractive option . Just as the Look of Love is nature’s own Viagra, so this “true” face might well be nature’s own birth control as it tends to look dour, tired, and ugly . Unconditional love is a state we all strive for in our lives, having seen it with our parents and hoped for it with our partners, but it is a rare and unrealistic goal in a relationship that’s also founded on sexual attraction . With men and women spending more hours in the workplace than they do at home, what happens when the person at home wears their world-weary face while at work the same person has been trained to wear their “best face”? I’ve studied thousands of business people and many of them wear the Look of Love on their faces when they’re working because they’re a salesperson, because they want to appear charismatic, or
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because they want to suck up to the boss . This leads to a potential blurring of roles that more than accounts for the amount of office-based extramarital affairs .
DOg FAcIng
Your route to work will involve a period of screensaver facial expression known as dog facing . This expression was discovered when prisoners were monitored when the guards were in the room as opposed to when the guards left them alone for a period of time . When the guards were there the prisoners dog faced, dropping their heads along with all traces of facial expression . This was partly through fear and partly through not wanting to stand out and be noticed . If you commute to work you’ll probably dog face for both of the last reasons . When you sit or stand on a crowded train you try to remain invisible because drawing attention to yourself in those circumstances can be dangerous . You’re in an enclosed environment with many strangers, any number of whom could pose a threat . By engaging in eye contact or attention-seeking behavior, you could risk opening yourself up to approach or even attack . You also place your mind somewhere else and this is reflected in your deadpan expression . Commuting is only bearable if you place your mind in a state of suspended animation!
Interspersed with this intense dog facing may be moments of high performance . This would come if you
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buy a newspaper from a cheerful vendor or have quick chats with coffee-bar staff, security guards, or receptionists . This may require massive effort as you’ve been dog-facing for a long period of time . Often your smile of greeting will only exist in your mind . Ask any receptionist and he or she will tell you that all they see is a stream of miserable faces going past their desk .
yOUR emOTIOnAL FAceS
Your key facial expressions are concerned with saving your life . There are primary and secondary emotions . Your basic emotions are those your ancestors would have used in the wild to react to real threats . They include fear, sadness, anger, joy, disgust, and surprise . Your secondary emotions are those caused or triggered by your thoughts or imagination . These include love, disappointment, contempt, optimism, and guilt or remorse .
Primary emotions have a strong facial response . Fear or surprise will make you raise your brows, widen your eyes, and possibly open your mouth . All these responses will increase your ability to see and think quickly in the face of real threat .
Disgust will prevent you from eating food that has gone bad or would poison you . This expression clamps the lips together and twists your mouth, closes your eyes, and makes you wrinkle your nose and turn your head away,
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often from side to side . You might also poke out your tongue to register rejection .
Anger creates a frown that protects your eyes in any potential fight . It also tightens the lips over the teeth, flares the nostrils, and puffs out and reddens your face, making you look more terrifying .
These primary emotional responses might be part of your evolutionary processing, but applied to the wrong situation they can cause conflict rather than save your life .
“You should have seen the look on your face” is a common comment, but the point is we can’t . Unlike your other body language, your only assessments or evaluations of your own facial expressions are likely to be retrospective, and even then you’ll need to have been filmed or photographed . Snapshots nearly always lie, either because you were putting on your “happy holiday”
smile or because the only unaware shots that were taken got consigned to the trash can the moment you clapped eyes on them .