What’s in a Face?

Were you aware that the tiniest change in your facial expression can be a clue as to your emotional state? That every wave of fear, doubt or determination – even if you feel it for just a few seconds – is reflected?

That’s the gist of research conducted over many years by Dr. Paul Ekman, a retired professor of psychology from the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Ekman has dedicated much of his life to reading and measuring facial expressions associated with emotions. He has found that there are a small number of facial expressions that reveal universal emotions. For example, if my jaw were thrust forward, this would suggest the same emotion as would be projected by someone living in Bangladesh or Botswana -- anger. Ekman’s insights are at the core of new and somewhat controversial airport screening techniques.

The current controversy aside, I have often been in situations where I really wanted to be able to read the minds of others in the room. So much of our communication focuses on the spoken or written word, and most of us, I would venture, are much less adept at reading and understanding nonverbal cues.

For help in reading others better, I turned to these resources. Maybe they can help you too:

• “Become a Human Lie Detector”
• “Body Language: It Speaks Louder than Words”
• “Nonverbal Communications: Escape the Pitfalls”

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