What somebody’s face tells

1. What somebody’s face tells
All five sensory modalities – sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch – are found
on or near the face, and of these touch is the only modality also to be found
elsewhere on the body. But the face isn’t simply a location for housing all the
sensory modalities – it’s also the most important source of outgoing signals in
the form of speech and features of the voice like accent and intonation, as
well as myriads of expressions involving the eyes and muscles of the head
and face.
Some facial expressions, like the startle reflex, are entirely involuntary; others,
like the smile, may be a genuine expression of pleasure or a deliberate
attempt to create an impression of genuine pleasure. Because the face is
partly under conscious control, it’s a major weapon in our daily attempts to
mislead and deceive each other. In spite of this, the face remains the prime
source of information about our emotional states – it’s by observing our faces
that other people can tell whether we are feeling happy, sad, angry, surprised
or frightened. Looking at our face, they can also tell whether we’re feeling
dominant or submissive.
The face conveys dominance signals in two ways. The first way is through
‘facial attributes’ – for example, whether the eyebrows are large or small, the
chin is square or round, or the eyes are close together or set wide apart. The
second way is through ‘facial actions’ – for example, how the eyes are
widened or narrowed, the eyebrows raised or lowered, or the chin is pushed
forward or pulled back. A person’s facial attributes tend to last for decades,
sometimes for most of their life. Facial actions, on the other hand, may
change from one second to the next.
Several facial attributes are associated with dominance.

2. People with square jaws are judged to be more dominant than those who
have weak, receding jawlines. People who have prominent ridges above their
eyes are also regarded as more dominant, and so are people with thin lips.
Physiognomic attributes play a major role in how people are treated. Men who
have a ‘dominant face’ are likely to have sex earlier in life and to have more
sex. Research has also shown that men who have more dominant faces are
more likely to attain high rank in the army.
Non-human primates and humans share many signals of dominance. Several
species of apes and monkeys, for example, lower their eyebrows as a
dominance threat signal. It’s the same with humans. People whose brows are
set low, or who lower them, are seen as dominant, while those who have
raised brows, or who elevate them temporarily, are seen as submissive. This
is one of the reasons why women pluck their eyebrows – by making them
thinner and raising them, women create a semi- permanent submission
display, which men are supposed to find attractive. The language of raised
and lowered eye- brows is widely understood. However, there are parts of the
world, including Africa and Asia, where raised eye- brows are not interpreted
Discover more at:
http://dor.academy/en/what-somebodys-face-tells/