13

conclusion

In the previous chapters you have seen the blueprints of facial expression––how happiness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust, and sadness are registered in the face. You have also seen many of the blend expressions, in which two of these emotions are combined. Some of the ways people use facial expressions to punctuate their conversation, underlining a word or two, has also been shown, as have some of the other messages conveyed by the face. Reading this book and looking at the photographs should increase your understanding of facial expressions. If you did the extra work of making up faces and practicing with the flashing faces at the end of each chapter and the new faces described in Chapter 10, then you are more likely to have developed your understanding into a skill that will be part of you, something you can use without having to think about it. A further way to practice what you have learned about the appearance of the face is to watch people without hearing their words. By turning the sound off while watching television, you can do that without rudeness. A few hours of such practice can serve to heighten your awareness of facial expressions.

Reading the sections on the experience of the six emotions should help you better understand emotion, quite apart from what it looks like on the face. You can check the explanations of each emotion’s dynamics against your own emotional experience to learn about your own feelings. For example, do you use all four routes to achieve happy feelings? Is one of the arousers of anger the most typical one for you? Which of the emotions do you dread the most? Which of the negative emotions do you enjoy?

The chapter on facial deceit explained why and how people control their facial expressions. Specific ways to recognize signs of control––modulating or falsifying expressions––were detailed. Clues to deceit, to picking up facial leakage, were also explained. Remember, you won’t be able to use this information unless you have gone beyond understanding the photographs in the earlier chapters to acquire the skill in recognizing facial expression by making faces, flashing faces, and using the practice faces. The end of Chapter 11 explained what you must consider to determine whether or not someone is managing his face.

The last chapter was concerned with how you may use your own face. Eight different styles of facial expressions were described. Knowing about them may help you better understand others, and if you went through the steps outlined––photographing and analyzing your own face, following the techniques for using a mirror––then perhaps you uncovered some interesting facts about your own facial expressions.

Of course, knowing how someone feels or how you feel does not tell you what to do about it. You may not always be glad that you know how someone else feels, particularly if he didn’t really want you to know it! Knowing how someone feels doesn’t mean that you will necessarily want to do anything about it. For example, when someone is controlling his anger, and you now can spot that, if you acknowledge you know he is angry you may cause him to explode. Depending upon the situation, that may be either just what you don’t want or what you do want. “Getting it all out” can be helpful or harmful, with any emotion. It depends upon you, the other person, the situation, your relationship, whether you both have an interest in sharing your feelings, etc. It may be that acknowledging another person’s anger could be very helpful. He may not explode; instead he may now have the opportunity to tell you what is bothering him before it builds up.

We have written the book on an assumption underlying science and all intellectual activity––that to increase know ledge is useful. We believe this is so, and that to increase your knowledge of facial expressions and of the emotions will be useful. You will have to consider to what use you put that knowledge. But, useful or not, the subject itself compelled us to write this book. Faces are fascinating.