Detecting Emotion in Others
To Westerners, a firm handshake conveys an outgoing, expressive personality (Chaplin et al., 2000). A glance can communicate intimacy, while darting eyes may signal anxiety (Kleinke, 1986; Perkins et al., 2012). When two people are passionately in love, they typically spend time—quite a bit of time—gazing into each other’s eyes (Bolmont et al., 2014; Rubin, 1970). Would such gazes stir these feelings between strangers? To find out, researchers have asked unacquainted male-female (and presumed heterosexual) pairs to gaze intently for 2 minutes either at each other’s hands or into each other’s eyes. After separating, the eye gazers reported feeling a tingle of attraction and affection (Kellerman et al., 1989).
“ Your face, my thane, is a book where men may read strange matters.”
Lady Macbeth to her husband, in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Our brain is an amazing detector of subtle expressions, helping most of us read nonverbal cues well. We are adept at detecting a hint of a smile (Maher et al., 2014). Shown 10 seconds of video from the end of a speed-dating interaction, people can often tell whether one person is attracted to another (Place et al., 2009). Signs of status are also easy to spot. When shown someone with arms raised, chest expanded, and a slight smile, people—from Canadian undergraduates to Fijian villagers—perceive that person as experiencing pride and having high status (Tracy et al., 2013). Even glimpsing a face for one-tenth of a second has enabled viewers to judge people’s attractiveness or trustworthiness, or to rate politicians’ competence and predict their voter support (Willis & Todorov, 2006). “First impressions . . . occur with astonishing speed,” note Christopher Olivola and Alexander Todorov (2010).
A silent language of emotion Hindu classic dance uses the face and body to effectively convey 10 different emotions (Hejmadi et al., 2000).
We also excel at detecting nonverbal threats. We readily sense subliminally presented negative words, such as snake or bomb (Dijksterhuis & Aarts, 2003). A single angry face will “pop out” of a crowd (Pinkham et al., 2010). Experience can sensitize us to particular emotions, as shown by experiments using a series of faces (like those in Figure 42.1) that morph from anger to fear (or sadness). Viewing such faces, physically abused children are much quicker than other children to spot the signals of anger. Shown a face that is 50 percent fear and 50 percent anger, they are more likely to perceive anger than fear. Their perceptions become sensitively attuned to glimmers of danger that nonabused children miss.
Figure 42.1 Experience influences how we perceive emotions
Viewing the morphed middle face, evenly mixing anger with fear, physically abused children were more likely than nonabused children to perceive the face as angry (Pollak & Kistler, 2002; Pollak & Tolley-Schell, 2003).
Hard-to-control facial muscles can reveal emotions you may be trying to conceal. Lifting just the inner part of your eyebrows, which few people do consciously, reveals distress or worry. Eyebrows raised and pulled together signal fear. Raised cheeks and activated muscles under the eyes suggest a natural smile, called a Duchenne smile (in honor of the French physician who described it). A feigned smile, such as one we make for a photographer, is often frozen in place for several seconds, then suddenly switched off (Figure 42.2). Genuine happy smiles tend to be briefer and to fade less abruptly (Bugental, 1986). If you have the urge to hide your happiness, remember that genuine smiles cause others to perceive us as trustworthy, authentic, and attractive (Gunnery & Ruben, 2016). Let your smile shine.
Figure 42.2 Which of researcher Paul Ekman’s smiles is feigned, which natural?
The smile on the right engages the facial muscles of a natural smile.
Despite our brain’s emotion-detecting skill, we find it difficult to discern deceit. The behavioral differences between liars and truth tellers are too minute for most people to detect (Hartwig & Bond, 2011). In one digest of 206 studies, people were just 54 percent accurate in discerning truth from lies—barely better than a coin toss (Bond & DePaulo, 2006). Moreover, virtually no one—save perhaps police professionals in high-stakes situations—beats chance by much (Bond & DePaulo, 2008; O’Sullivan et al., 2009).
Some of us more than others are sensitive to the physical cues of various emotions. In one study, people named the emotion displayed in brief film clips. The clips showed portions of a person’s emotionally expressive face or body, sometimes accompanied by a garbled voice (Rosenthal et al., 1979). For example, after a 2-second scene revealing only the face of an upset woman, the researchers would ask whether the woman was criticizing someone for being late or was talking about her divorce. Given such “thin slices,” some people were much better emotion detectors than others. Introverts tend to excel at reading others’ emotions, while extraverts are generally easier to read (Ambady et al., 1995).
Gestures, facial expressions, and voice tones, which are absent in written communication, convey important information. The difference was clear when study participants in one group heard 30-second recordings of people describing their marital separations. Participants in the other group read a script of the recording. Those who heard the recording were better able to predict the people’s current and future adjustment (Mason et al., 2010). Just hearing a stranger say “hello” is enough to give listeners some clue to the speaker’s personality.
The absence of expressive emotion can make for ambiguous emotion in electronic communications. To partly remedy that, we often embed visual cues to emotion in our messages 
. Without the vocal nuances that signal whether our statement is serious, kidding, or sarcastic, we are in danger of what developmental psychologist Jean Piaget called egocentrism, by failing to perceive how others interpret our “just kidding” message (Kruger et al., 2005).