“The Hidden Cost of Smiling”?
In a recent blog post on Psychology Today, Dr. Noam Spencer, a professor of psychology at Otterbein College wrote about “The Hidden Cost of Smiling.” He talks about Americans and how they are “over-socialized to smile, and argues that Americans are taught to smile at all situations, to the point where it has become an empty expression”.
Dr. Spencer relates the tendency to deliver an empty smile so easily, and in so many situations, to that of a psychopath, and that we as a society encourage and tolerate the “dissociation of facial expressions from their original purpose of communicating an underlying truth”.
He further argues that there are multiple consequences of ‘the faked smile’. One example that he gives regards American politics, and the public’s expectation of its leaders to project signs of optimism and certainty. He believes that he fakeness of American politicians “may be one reason for the decline in the quality of political leadership,” with the American people no longer having to face the reality of the state of their nation.
Dr. Matsumoto prefers to refer to these smiles as ‘social smiles,’ which he believes are just as important as smiles that portray genuine enjoyment, or enjoyment smiles. Test your knowledge of social/enjoyment smiles by taking our social/enjoyment smile game.
It may be a little harsh to compare Americans to psychopaths. Dr. Spencer states that psychopaths smile in order to further their agenda, rather than convey a true emotion. In addition, he argues that this description of a 
psychopath is similar to Americans’ tendency to force a smile even in the most difficult situations.
However, aren’t ‘social smiles’ necessary in many situations? (Spencer alludes to this point as well, but states that excessive smiling is unnecessary) A job interview, for example, is stressful and nerve-wracking, yet a motivated interviewee would not even think of answering each question without a confident smile. ‘Social smiles’ have can have quite an impact in building rapport. To liken the American people to psychopaths is questionable.
Do you feel that it is too harsh of a word, or is it an honest way of describing the way society is going based on Spencer’s article?
Dr. Matsumoto’s Research Images!
Humintell is excited to announce the release of Dr. David Matsumoto’s images, which can be used by researchers for various studies. Once you purchase the image set, you will receive instructions on how to download them from our training website.
Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE) – 56 color photos, each exemplifying one of the 7 universal emotions. The photos are equally divided into male and female populations, and are also equally distributed between Japanese and Asian subjects.
Japanese and Caucasian Neutral Faces (JACNeuf) – This photo set contains 56 images of the same subjects that appear in the JACFEE set, each demonstrating a neutral expression.
Combined JACFEE and JACNeuf – Combines all 56 color photos from the Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion Collection and all 56 color photos from the Japanese and Caucasian Neutral Faces Collection to create a set of 112 examples of cross cultural facial expressions.
Standard Expressor Version of the JACFEE – 130 color photographs of 9 different subjects, who exemplify each of the 7 universal emotions. Each expressor also demonstrates a neutral expression. This set is useful in examining judgments of different emotions while keeping the facial characteristics of each subject constant.
For more information on these image sets, please click here
Roger Clemens on 60 Minutes
On August 18, 2010 Roger Clemens, former major league baseball player and multiple Cy Young award winner, was indicted on three counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. Less than 2 weeks later on August 31, Clemens pleaded not guilty in federal court to the charges.
The charges of perjury and making false statements stem from a report on doping in baseball dating 3 years ago in 2007. The report alleged that Clemens had used anabolic steroids on multiple occasions in 1998, 2000 and 2001, and human growth hormone on multiple occasions in 2000.
According to a recent news article, Clemens “repeatedly told lawmakers and congressional staff that the allegations in the report were false”, including during a 60 minutes interview with Mike Wallace back in January of 2008. The video can be seen below.
It is important to note that “The indictment does not offer specific proof that Clemens used the banned drugs but alleges that he lied to Congress when he rebutted the claims of others who said he had used the substances. Federal prosecutors said Monday that they have agreed to provide the defense with a 34-page master index of evidence, computer disks and “scientific evidence” as stated in a recent Los Angeles Times article. An interesting blog was also written in the Washington Post about the possibility that Clemens could be telling the truth.
Take a look at the videos below, including House Oversight & Govt. Reform Committee hearing on the use of performance enhancing substances by major league baseball players back in 2008.
Can you spot any hot spots (discrepancies in verbal and nonverbal behavior) during Clemens’ interview with Wallace? Weigh in with your thoughts in our comment section and remember that seeing a hot spot does not necessarily mean that someone is being deceptive.
Faces to Fear or Trust?
In a previous blog post, we commented on research out of Princeton University that attempted to determine the face of an individual that seemed “trustworthy”.
In the same study, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University Alexander Todorov and research specialist Nikolaas Oosterhof attempted to search for a way to define the characteristics of a person’s face that conveys a sense that they can be either trusted or feared. Their study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was titles “The functional basis of face evaluation”.
To perform their studies, the researchers showed unfamiliar faces to subjects and asked them to describe characteristics of the faces that indicated certain personality traits such as aggressiveness. After analyzing the subject’s responses, the researchers narrowed down specific traits that were consistently described as being associated with certain personality traits and then showed the same faces to another group and “asked them to rate each face for the degree to which it possessed one of the dozen listed traits“.
As a result of the data gathers, Todorov and Oosterhof found that humans make “split-second judgments on faces on two major measures — whether the person should be approached or avoided and whether the person is weak or strong”.
From there, the Princeton researchers used a commercial computer software program that generated composites of humans faces possessing the same characteristics based of their previous research. They asked another group of subjects to look at 300 faces and rate them for traits such as trustworthiness, dominance and threat.
The results of their research showed that there were common features of faces that suggested trustworthiness, dominance and threat. See below for an example of faces that are trustworthy and least trustworthy.
Princeton University researchers have developed a computer program that analyzes the facial features that make people appear trustworthy or fearsome. Below are some of the most extreme examples showing computer-generated faces displaying these characteristics.
Here is a face Princeton researchers found to be most trustworthy in the study.
Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov
This face is considered neutral because of its blank expression.
Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov
Here is a face Princeton scientists concluded to be least trustworthy, according to the study findings.
Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov
As stated in an article released by Princeton University, “While it may be true that people have little control over their facial features, the study also indicates that expressions may be important as well, which could have implications for people in jobs that require extensive interactions with the public. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and a Huygens Scholarship from the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education”.
Best Poker Face?
A new study out of Wellesley University led by Dr. Erik Schlicht investigated ”whether and opponent’s face influences players’ wagering decisions in a zero-sum game with hidden information”. In this case, the game they used in their study was Texas Hold’em Poker.
Schlicht and his team asked participants to make “risky” choices while simultaneously being presented with opponents whose faces “differentially correlated with subjective impressions of trust”. In short, participants were forced to make difficult decisions while seeing a face that was either untrustworthy, neutral or trustworthy.
But what exactly is an untrustworthy or trustworthy face?
According to research out of Princeton University, a trustworthy face looks like this:
Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov
The expression seems to have a slight smile and the eyebrows turned slightly up.
By using an expression simliar to the one shown above, Schlicht and his team of researchers found that ”threatening face information has little influence on wagering behavior, but faces relaying positive emotional characteristics impact people’s decisions”.
According to the abstract of the study, Schlicht concluded that “the best “poker face” for bluffing may not be a neutral face, but rather a face that contains emotional correlates of trustworthiness”.
The study which was published on July 21, 2010 in PLoS One is titled “Human Wagering Behavior Depends on Opponent’s Faces”.
Lie to Me Season 2 Episode 20 “Exposed”
Gillian Foster’s boyfriend, Dave Burns, is kidnapped in this week’s episode of Lie to Me.
Back at the Lightman Group office, tensions are running high as microexpressions expert Cal Lightman gives Foster the combination to his office safe. After opening it, Foster finds a file on her boyfriend, which includes an image she pulls out. Ria Torres sees the picture and mistakenly labels it as “fear”.
The expression which she wrongly labels can be seen in the opening seconds of this Youtube preview of yesterday’s episode:
Although the viewer only sees the expression for a split second, Burn’s expression shows his brows down and together, which is indicative of anger or contemplation. In contrast, the emotion of fear are the brows drawn up and together, often forming wavy lines in the forehead.
You can contrast the 2 expressions by looking at them here:
As you can see, the picture on the left shows the brows drawn down and together, while the expression on the right shows the brows moving up and together. The eyes in the left expression are narrowing, while in the expression on the right, the eyes are wide and open. Often in fear, you see a lot of white above the eyes as you can see in the expression on the right.
Smiling Affects Your Mood
In a news article that came out last year, Japanese railworkers for Keikyu Railways adopted a new way of ensuring their smile is genuine.
New facial expression recognition software helps employees measure their own smiles based on a mathematical scale. This technology has endless potential and could be used in a wide variety of professions, especially for those that interact with individuals on a face to face basis.
In fact, several researchers have suggested that facial expressions affect your mood.
An article in Time Magazine from last year described the work of researcher Marsha Linehan, a University of Washington psychologist who treats suicidal patients. Through her research, Linehan found that “helping patients modulate their facial expressions — relaxing the face when angry, for instance — can help them control their emotions”.
Several other researchers have investigated the positive effects of smiling, such as making you more attractive and lifting your spirits. Smiling has also been proven to help build rapport and create positive relationships with others.
Facial Expressions of Emotion are Innate, Not Learned
A 2008 study conducted by Humintell Director Dr. David Matsumoto and Photographer Bob Willingham investigated whether or not facial expressions of emotion were innate or a product of cultural learning.
The study, which was the first of its kind, studied congenitally blind (blind from birth) and sighted judo athletes at the 2004 Paralympic Games and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.
Their journal article entitled “Spontaneous Facial Expressions of Emotion of Congenitally and Noncongenitally Blind Individuals” was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2009.
During the course of the study, more than 4,800 photographs were captured and analyzed, including images of athletes from 23 countries. According to the findings, there were “no differences between congenitally blind, noncongenitally blind, and sighted athletes, either on the level of individual facial actions or in facial emotion configurations”. This meant that the blind and sighted athletes produced the exact same facial expression, firing the exact same muscles at exactly the same time in similar situations.
For example, below are images of women who had just lost a medal match. The woman on the left is the non-sighted athlete and the woman on the right is the sighted athlete. As you can see, the expressions are both of sadness. The brows are drawn up and together in both pictures, indicating sadness.
These findings “provide compelling evidence that the production of spontaneous facial expressions of emotion is not dependent on observational learning but simultaneously demonstrates a learned component to the social management of expressions, even among blind individuals”.
In essence, facial expressions of emotion are hardwired into our genes and are not learned culturally.
“Losers pushed their lower lip up as if to control the emotion on their face and many produced social smiles,” Matsumoto said. “Individuals blind from birth could not have learned to control their emotions in this way through visual learning so there must be another mechanism. It could be that our emotions, and the systems to regulate them, are vestiges of our evolutionary ancestry. It’s possible that in response to negative emotions, humans have developed a system that closes the mouth so that they are prevented from yelling, biting or throwing insults”.
References:
San Francisco State University (2008, December 30). Facial Expressions Of Emotion Are Innate, Not Learned. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/12/081229080859.htm
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