The human face is a wondrous purveyor of emotion, thanks to some 40 individual muscles. A raised eyebrow, flaring nostril or cheeky smile communicate much more than we can say.
Researcher in psychology at the University of New England, Belinda Craig, has spent years studying peoples' faces and what they express. So before your next interview or first day on the new job there are five key things she thinks you should know.
1. Facial expressions of emotion are revealing but complicated.
"We are fairly good at recognising some emotional expressions," Belinda says. "A smile is easily recognised as a sign of positivity and happiness, but otherwise there is a lot of room for misinterpretation. We think there are standardised expressions, but it is easy to mistake one for another - especially anger for disgust, and fear for surprise, and vice-versa.
"We're also very good at faking emotion, and poor at recognising when someone else is. Our mood can also influence the way we perceive emotion in others. For example, if we are feeling a little negative ourselves (first-day-nerves) this can make it harder for us to see positivity and easier for us to see negativity in other peoples' faces. This may lead us to incorrectly assume we have made a bad first impression."
2. We make snap judgements from a person's face, but they are not always accurate.
"Within milliseconds of meeting someone, we're gathering information about their age, gender, ethnicity and attractiveness, and this is all incorporated into the positive or negative judgement we make about them," Belinda says.
"We infer personality attributes from faces, like trustworthiness and warmth, and our facial expressions can contribute to these judgements. So if someone smiles, they can be perceived as even warmer or kinder. A smile can go a long way to creating a positive first impression.
"When forming first impressions of others, the context of the meeting is important, and we also factor in their body language and other information. This means you might not make an accurate judgement about someone from a fleeting glance across the room. Without the full context, you may read all the cues wrongly."
3. We each have implicit biases.
"We are faster and more accurate at recognising emotion in faces from the same ethnic background, and we are biased towards reading their smiles more favourably," Belinda says. "our biases can be influences by our personality, temperament, life experiences, even our motivations. Things like facial hair can affect how emotions are perceived, and in some cultures and contexts a happy face is considered more competent.
"It's helpful to know that such biases exist, because then you can recognise them when they arise and decide what to do with that information."
4. Different cultures express emotion differently.
"The way people from different cultures express emotion may be a bit unfamiliar to us, but we are generally not too bad at recognising expressions across cultures," Belinda says. "By taking into account the contextual information (what is happening in any given situation), we stand a fairly good chance of being able to communicate non-verbally across cultures."
5. First impressions don't have to last.
"A first impression is just a snap judgement we make, and doesn't have to be a lasting one," Belinda says. "We can override biases, rather than act on them. If you are meeting work colleagues for the first time, or applying for a job, people can appreciate the context that you might be nervous, and factor that in. Becoming a good employee and work colleague is likely to make a more lasting impression."
So the take-home messages?
- If you make an undesirable first impression, it's not the end of the world;
- To make a good first impression, be yourself, relax, smile and be positive;
- Present well: people tend to feel positively towards attractive people (a friendly smile can also help here, as happy faces are perceived as more attractive);
- You may get your first impressions of others wrong, too, so cut people some slack;
- Give yourself time to develop relationships and really get to know your new work colleagues beyond any snap judgements on their part or your own.
And in this era of the hipster, a final word on beards...
"Beards can make it a little harder to recognise happy and sad expressions, and a little easier to recognise anger," Belinda says. "on average, a beard won't enhance your attractiveness to others, but it has been shown to enhance cues of masculinity and dominance, so it could help you to look more dominant and higher in status, and that could be of benefit in some contexts. I'll leave the decision on beards to the individual."
