Can you tell the difference between a genuine smile and a fake one?
Several weeks ago, I wrote about reading people through facial expressions, but more specifically through eye contact. To refresh your memory, click here. Today I want to dive deeper into other ways a person’s face can reveal information about them - their mouth.
The mouth is an interesting place when it comes to reading people. As the origin of our speech, this is where we hold much of our tension. When we tell a lie, it is the delivery mechanism we use to convey our words. And so it is only fitting that it can give us away the most, regardless of the words we use. When we are angry or stressed, we may see a clenching of one’s jaw or the grinding of teeth. When we’re nervous or afraid, we may see the biting down of lips, tightening of the mouth, or twisting the lips to one side. Dry mouth is also a common symptom of nervousness, which can be tipped off by exaggerated swallowing.
Another big tell is frequent sighs or yawns. Although the science as to why is not yet fully understood, it appears that we tend to yawn more when under heightened states of stress. This is partially due to the fact that stress causes our body to heat up and so when our brains feel our internal temperature rise, yawning helps cool things off.
Now let’s talk about smiling. Don’t take a smile at face value. After all, some people can smile to your face and stab you in the back. When someone smiles genuinely, the smile will affect their entire face. The edges of the mouth will almost reach the edges of a person’s eyes. When it’s real, conveying an authentic feeling of pleasure or humor or warmth, a smile will transform someone’s face completely. There is actually a name for this expression - it is referred to as the Duchenne smile. Fake smiles, on the other hand, often only affect the bottom half of the face, leaving the eyes and cheeks relatively neutral.
