RP244 Do Facial Expressions Tell Us All

 RP244 Do Facial Expressions Tell Us All?

If the eyes are the window to the soul, the face is the window to someone's mood. That's what people commonly believe, anyway. The expressions on one's face are the best indicators of the person's emotional state, right?

Yes and no. “There's some sense in which faces express emotion, but only in the sense that everything expresses emotion,” says psychologist James Russell, PhD. “Music does, posture does, words do, tone of voice does, your behavior does. The real question is: Is there anything special about faces?”

Indeed, facial expressions are part of a whole system of actions that result from an emotion. Doctors Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen theorize that emotions cause electrical activity to flow from the brain's emotion center, triggering involuntary facial expressions and other physical actions like changes in heart rate. The key word here is “involuntary.” Different cultures show emotions differently, and humans can learn to hide or mask their expressions. However, it seems that humans can't suppress microexpressions. These are extremely brief flashes of expression that represent a person's true feelings, even when he or she is trying to hide them. Luckily, microexpressions pass too quickly for people to notice them most of the time.

There may be something special about faces, though. Some research shows that facial expressions do more than show emotions. They are emotions. Researcher Carroll Izard says, “Emotion at one level of analysis is neuromuscular activity of the face.” Studies have shown that asking people to assume expressions of anger, fear, happiness, and other basic emotions actually triggers those emotional reactions. People who are asked to smile experience a positive mood change; people who frown tend to feel worse than they did before.

Perhaps there's something to the idea of “fake it till you make it.” Smiling when you' re unhappy may help you on your way to happiness. Pay attention to the look that's on your face. It may affect you more than you think.