The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

SUBMISSIVE TELLS
normal, an unsmiling woman can look quite unusual.
Consequently, to appear normal a woman needs to smile
much more than a man. A man, on the other hand, doesn't
need to smile a lot because other men aren't smiling that
much.
When people are asked to look at a smiling face and to
decide whether the smile is genuine, they automatically
look at the crow's feet areas on the outside of the eyes.
They seem to know, instinctively, that genuine smiles
wrinkle up this part of the face, and so that's where
to look. However, although people clearly know where to
look when they're deciding about the authenticity of a
smile, they are quite happy to accept fake smiles instead.
For example, when someone has committed a misdemeanour,
other people are more likely to treat that
person leniently if he or she offers an apology in the form
of a smile. What's interesting is that it doesn't matter very
much whether the smile that the person produces is
genuine or false - provided it's some sort of smile, people
are prepared to be lenient. This suggests that although we
are capable of distinguishing a genuine smile from a false
smile, we don't always exercise this ability - there are
even times when we actively seem to suppress it. What's
important to us is that other people smile at the right time.
The fact that their smiling is a pretence doesn't seem to
bother us at all.
Blushing Tells
For Charles Darwin, it was the blush, not laughter, which
distinguished man from the other animals. 16 Darwin's
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