3. First impression. Face and interpretation of facial expressions in communication.

This lesson gives an idea of ​​the kinetic facial expressions and possible interpretations in communication. Basic and advanced facial expressions; emotions and attitudes as the subject of a message. Situational games are held: "The situation with strangers", "The situation with colleagues." Test exercises: “Interpretation of facial expressions”, “Understanding the facial expression code”.

Wilson G., McCulaflinK. Sign language is the path to success. - SPb .: Peter, 2001. - 224.

The six faces of Adam and Eve.

Do you belong to the type of people whose feelings are all written on their face, or has a great poker player disappeared in you? Some people just find it difficult, if ever, to conceal what they are thinking about, because the expressions of their faces clearly reflect the slightest movements of thoughts. Such people laugh and cry easily, their faces change their natural color, so that they blush with embarrassment or turn white with anger, they frown at eyebrows covered with anxiety or anxiety. Some of us are completely unable, whatever they do, to get rid of such habits (or some of them), and very few are able to control their facial expressions to a great extent. But even they are not able to keep an indifferent expression all the time, since the mobility of facial features is peculiar to human nature.

Many experts believe that our ability to mimicry is innate and has probably gone a long way in the course of millions of years of evolution. This means that it does not matter where you come from or how you were brought up, since mimic expressions are a real “world language”. The most famous among psychologists who successfully deal with these problems is Dr. Paul Ekman, who works in America. He believes that it is possible to count six types of emotions that reflect human faces in exactly the same way anywhere in the world, although, of course, there may be different rules about whether to show these emotions publicly, and if so, when and where. According to Dr. Ekman, people, regardless of their experience and worldly sophistication, are easily able to read on the faces of others and even from photographs, such emotions as fear, joy, surprise, anger, sadness, disgust (Figure 1).

Of course, life is much more complicated. For example, it is then that all human beings, without exception, can smile, even the blind-born babies who have never seen smiles, it does not always mean joy. In some cultures, for example, in traditional Japanese, it is considered impolite to publicly express their negative emotions, and therefore, looking at the smiling faces of the Japanese, it is difficult to judge their true feelings. But not only the Japanese are able to hide their feelings. Probably, you more than once found yourself on how your face acquired an attentive and even interested expression when you listened to some bore that you could not get rid of. Even the most honest of us can be a little hypocrite.

An experienced observer, however, can easily suspect that your feelings are contrary to facial expression, if he watches you from a close enough distance. By controlling your facial expressions, you can be so tense that you’ll pay less attention to other aspects of sign language. You will be able to give out hand movements or any other involuntary gestures that send signals that are contrary to the expression on your face.

Below is an episode from the life of one professional cheater.

A few years ago, Kim Philby, a high-ranking British secret service official and the “third man” in the scandal around the spies of Burgess and Maclean, shared the fate of his colleagues who were found to be spying. When he first came under suspicion as a Russian agent who was following Burgess and Maclean, during an interview in a newsreel, he denied as unfounded all suspicions of his espionage activities. But, although he looked then a man who was sure he was right, re-viewing the film revealed a slight twitching of his facial muscles, which is a sign of a stressful state. Snapshot helped to clearly see a rather stupid smirk that appeared on his face after a particularly solemn declaration of innocence. This grin now seemed rather significant. Probably, she was the answer to his inner voice, which repeated: "I am in a delicate situation" or "It is ridiculous that I am sitting here and saying such absurd things."

Picture 1

Wainrat G. Body Language / - Per. from English K.Tkachenko. - M .: FAIR-PRES, 2002.-320 p.

Facial exercises

1. To develop facial muscle tone, do the following exercises daily for a minute:

• Relax your facial muscles and smile broadly in your mouth, preferably waving your eyebrows up at the same time.

• Re-relax the facial muscles and push the lips into a tight round “o.”

• Again, relax your facial muscles, lift your chin as much as possible, lift your eyebrows and stretch your lips alternately in a smile and gather into a small “o”.

2. Enough to frown!

Whenever you have to concentrate on a serious matter, place your hand on your forehead. If you feel frowning, stop and stretch your forehead. If this does not help, lift eyebrows and let the folds of the forehead lie better horizontally than vertically.

You will find that one of the results of these manipulations will be that you will suffer less from headaches.

3. Show your feelings

Taking a mirror in your hands, practice the expression of the following emotions in the indicated sequence: • joy, • sadness, • surprise, • disgust, • fear, • anger.

If you can bring someone else to your business, ask them to identify the emotions you demonstrate. To somewhat complicate the task of your assistant, change the order of expression of certain feelings. Exercise will allow you to find out how well you manage to express what you want on your face. At the same time, you will find out how accurately your partner manages to determine the condition of another person by face. When your partner has fully grasped the essence of the exercise, you can switch roles, and possibly attract other people to your lesson. It can also be a useful and fascinating game, where, depending on the accuracy of determining the emotions of others, points are added.

4. Is my face my wealth?

Pick up six photographs of different people, and one of the photographs should have the face of a famous and attractive TV or film star. Show the photos to the largest possible number of people and ask them to rate the attractiveness of each person in points from 1 to 10. Do other people’s ratings coincide with your own? Do they agree on the most attractive character? The results of the experiment will allow you to make interesting conclusions about the peculiarities of the perception of a foreign person by people.

5. How many people are there?

Look carefully at people's faces. Can these people be classified by type? Are there clearly similar ones? Or is each face unique?

Sincere or fake mimicry.

The faces of people do not always reflect their true feelings. This sometimes means that the expressions of human faces hide rather than expose the real thoughts and feelings of their masters. Everyone knows that some people are better than others, they know how to hide deception, and in this connection one should ask: can one always distinguish sincere feelings from feigned ones by facial expressions? The answer is: probably not, by no means always, but nevertheless you can offer some “keys” so that you know what you should pay attention to when communicating with other people (Figure 2). The first thing to remember is that it is much easier to control facial expressions of the mouth than the movements of the forehead and eyes, and, therefore, it is there, in the upper part of the face, that you should look for involuntary dashes that show deception. A person with a fake smile on his face is not able to reproduce the folds under the lower faiths, which are important components of the element of a natural smile. Another "key" is that a fake smile may appear a little earlier or a little later than you might expect. A smile that emerged too suddenly and seems to be a little harsh, of course, is suspicious.

Figure 2. Compare a sincere smile with a fake one.

Your distrust should increase if the smile lasts too long on the other person’s face - a natural smile lasts for about 4 seconds. Theoretically, you should be able to determine how sincere a person’s expression is by comparing the right half of his face with the left. This method is based on the fact that the left side of a human face is usually more expressive than the right one.

This conclusion was made on the basis of an experiment in which people were shown the right and left halves of photographs depicting the actor’s face in different expressions and were asked to determine what kind of feeling lies behind his facial expressions. As a result, it turned out that the interpretation of facial expressions on the left halves was half a tone more expressive than the one that was made on the basis of the corresponding right. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the right hemisphere of the brain, which controls the left half of the body, controls the emotions of the person, while the left is responsible for logic and common sense. This division of labor between the hemispheres leads to the fact that the left side of the body transmits emotions more intensely than the right side. Another explanation is also possible: in the right hemisphere there are matrices of all facial expressions, and therefore it is “responsible” for a person’s facial expressions.

There is, however, a directly opposite point of view, according to which the left side of a face is only more expressive than the right side, when human emotions are more simulated than experienced. A number of studies show that natural emotions with equal force are reflected on both sides of a human face, and only intentionally fabricated expressions appear brighter on its left half. According to psychologist Paul Ekman, various parts of the central nervous system - or nerve pathways - are involved in the process of transmitting different types of emotions. In his opinion, facial expressions, taken consciously, are under the control of the cerebral cortex, where the functions of each hemisphere are subject to the complex laws of the "division of labor" system. Meanwhile, natural emotions originate in various parts of the brain, which are controlled differently, without the participation of this “system”. Emotions are spontaneous and fabricated emotions are formed by different parts of the brain.

According to the American psychologist Carl Smith, in the "masks" that people wear, there are many options, depending on the identity of specific people. He believes that humanity is divided into two parts according to the dominance of one or another half of the face. Most people belong to the "right-sided" type, the minority - to the "left-sided" type. To determine what type you are, look at your face in the mirror. You will easily understand which side of your face dominates by answering the proposed questions.

Test "Which side of your face ...":

• is more open? In other words, on which side is the distance between the eyebrow and chin more?

• has the least dimples and wrinkles?

• usually tilted to the other person?

• opens wide mouth during a conversation?

If you answered “left” to almost all the questions, it means that this part dominates in you; if almost all of them you answered "right", then it prevails. Karl Smith determined that although approximately 80% of people fall into the “right-sided” group, musicians usually belong to the “left-sided” type. Almost all the great composers, singers and orchestra members were defined as “left-handed”. This is probably due to the fact that the “creative” right lobes of their brain are more developed. Scholars, as well as politicians, actors, dancers and athletes, according to Smith, are mostly “right-handed” - probably because success in these professions depends on the abilities, especially speech and analytical, which are controlled by the left hemisphere.