7 microexpressions that give you away

The microexpressions They are very fast and involuntary facial expressions that They occur as a manifestation of an emotion that we are feeling. I’ll tell you a secret: these They allow us to know what the person we are interacting with is feeling.
Learning to identify them will facilitate your personal relationships improving the expression of your emotions, and with it your needs and in turn those of your partner, friends, family, etc… On the other hand, a very useful tip to know what a person is feeling is to imitate their facial expression.

This trick allows us to understand that by manipulating our body language we can experience any emotional response we want. In other words, we have the incredible power to generate emotions through our expression.

Paul Ekmanthe greatest exponent of microexpressions, states that they are biological and unlearned expressions. So it is a universal aspect of the human being. According to the author, when we try to hide our emotions they appear for a very brief moment. In fact, they happen so quickly that an untrained eye might not see them.

How many facial expressions are there?

To date, more than 10,000 different facial expressions have been catalogued, with only 7 basic microexpressions identified. Universal and subtle gestures that allow us to read emotions in the face of the person we are looking atand constitute the basis of the rest of facial expressions.

The 7 basic microexpressions are made up of the following.

1. Anger

The microexpression of anger is mainly concentrated in the upper part of the face, where we lowered and brought our eyebrows together with a frown. We tend to clench and tense our mouths, slightly separating the lips and clenching the teeth. The gaze became penetrating.

2. Fear

This microexpression is characterized by tense eyebrows and wide open eyes. to be able to visualize everything we can in our visual field since we are perceiving danger somewhere.

In the lower part of the face, the jaw relaxes and we stretch our lips slightly, also constituting an instinctive behavior to allow us to scream and take in oxygen. In this way, the mouth is slightly ajar.

3. Joy

Joy is shown with slanted eyes and wrinkles at the outer corners and lower eyelids.. A trick: when a person pretends to be happy, those wrinkles do not form. We will also show the characteristic smile, which the happier we feel, the more we will open until we show our teeth.

4. Contempt

In this expression the upper part of the face can adopt different gesturesfinding the key to identify it in the lower part of the face since we manifest a very particular expression which consists of raising one corner of the mouth and the other forming a half smile.

After research on this microexpression carried out by John Gottmanit was proven that thanks to her Can you tell if a marriage will end in breakup? If we see that the gesture of contempt is common between the two people.

5. The surprise

It is characterized by raised and arched eyebrows with wide open eyes.. In the lower part of the face the jaw is loose and the mouth is open.

6. Sadness

This It is one of the most complicated microexpressions to fake.. It is characterized by low eyebrows that meet subtly in the center. The corners of the lips tend to drop and may even tremble.

7. Disgust

This microexpression is one of the easiest to identify since the entire expression is concentrated between the mouth and nose. The nose wrinkles and the upper lip rises, often leaving the upper teeth visible. Wrinkles also occur around the nose and forehead, as well as the lifting of the cheeks while the lower eyelids wrinkle.

However, we don’t only show it when we are going to eat something that arouses disgust in us. We also show it in personal relationships when we feel disapproval or someone displeases us. Disgust is an emotion that can be transferred to the rejection of ideologies opposed to ours. So it is not strange to observe this expression, for example, in a debate.

I provide you with a video as a summary so that you can use this valuable and necessary learning when it comes to enjoying satisfactory intra- and interpersonal relationships and, most importantly, their inner growth for both you and those around you.

Do you feel able to detect each of the 7 microexpressions? We encourage you to put it into practice with your loved ones and with confidence.

You might be interested…