The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

LYING TELLS
Smiling Tells
Of all the facial expressions, smiling is probably the
easiest to produce. It's also disarming because it makes
other people feel positive and less suspicious about the
liar. But the thing that really recommends the smile is
the fact that most people aren't very good at telling the
difference between a genuine smile and a false smile,
because they tend to take smiles at face value. People can
usually identify 'blended smiles' which display negative
emotions. They find it very easy, for example, to spot a
'miserable smile', where the inside edges of the eyebrows
are raised and the corners of the mouth are either pulled
up or slightly lowered. But people are notoriously bad at
spotting false, unblended smiles, and that's why they're
used to mask the negative emotions associated with
lying. 19
If you ask people how to spot a liar they often mention
smiling. They'll tell you that when someone is lying they're
more likely to use a smile to mask their true feelings.
However, research on lying shows that it's the other way
round - people who are lying smile less than those who
are telling the truth. What appears to be happening is that
liars occasionally adjust their behaviour so that it's the
opposite to what everyone expects of people who are
telling a lie. This doesn't mean that liars have abandoned
smiling - it simply shows that they smile less than people
who are telling the truth. When dissemblers do smile
they often give themselves away by producing a counterfeit
smile. There are several identifying features of
counterfeit smiles:
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