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JIMINY SELF-HELP HANDBOOK 11

participants attempted to be deceitful about their emotional expressions. Micro-expressions may also
be signs of rapidly processed but unconcealed emotional states.

Facial cues can be a rich source of information about the emotion another person is experiencing. Here
are some areas of the face you can observe and things you can learn about a person from them:
• The eyes. The degree to which people maintain eye contact can indicate how much they
believe in what they are saying. Someone who is repeatedly breaking eye contact, for instance,
may indicate he or she is slightly anxious or is hiding something. Comparatively, someone who
maintains a steady gaze, looking directly at you without backing away, likely feels confident
and self-assured.
• The mouth. The position of people’s mouths can be indicative of how they are feeling. A person
who is happy will likely be smiling, perhaps with teeth showing. Pencil-thin lips, a scowl, or a
grimace, on the other hand, can indicate anger or discomfort.
• The forehead. A person’s forehead can also give away how a person is feeling. A wrinkled
forehead may indicate confusion or being perplexed; a sweating forehead can be a sign of
anxiety; a lined raised forehead may indicate feelings of surprise or delight.
• The eyebrows. The position of the eyebrows may also provide clues as to how a person is
feeling. Lowered eyebrows can signal deception or displeasure; raised eyebrows can signal
surprise or questioning; moving the eyebrows up and down quickly can be part of a greeting
or welcoming gesture.
We give below three examples from the book: ‘Emotions Revealed’ from Paul Ekman (2003).

Upset, unhappy, perplexed miserable etc. These are all possibilities. All of these refer to the
anger theme of having an obstacle in the path of a goal. It might even be highly controlled
anger. The lowered tensed eyelids and the lowered brows signal anger.