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Universal or Just Deceptive Emotions?

We spend a fair amount of this blog discussing the role of universal emotional expressions, but not everyone agrees.

Some emerging research, such as a recent study by Drs. Carlos Crivelli and Alan Fridlund, has begun to challenge some fundamental ideas related to the concept of basic emotions. This research questions whether facial expressions reflect emotions at all but instead reflect intentional social action.

For example, Dr. Crivelli has spent months interacting with indigenous groups like the Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea and the Mwani of Mozambique. When many of these people are shown basic emotion expressions, Dr. Crivelli found that they declined to identify those expressions with emotions.

Instead, a smile was described as “laughing” or as a feeling of being in “raptured enchantment.” Dr. Crivelli noticed that these referred not to emotions as much as to behaviors and actions. He found similar results when replicating these analyses among the Himba people of Namibia or the Hadza in Tanzania.

Moreover, a 2017 meta-analysis found that often facial expressions are not representing the emotion we would thing they should be, based on basic emotion theory. Instead, co-author Dr. Rainer Reisenzein suggested that openly expressing one’s emotions could “[put] us at a disadvantage” in an evolutionary sense.

Dr. Fridlund emphasized a similar point, stressing that emotions have strategic social motivations. Perhaps individuals are not revealing inner states but are trying to convey a specific state to you, so that you will act accordingly.

While many would see this research as a challenge to the idea of basic emotions, this isn’t really the case. Instead, it just underscores the importance of both incorporating microexpression analysis and deception detection. Microexpressions are actually just basic emotional expressions that are displayed almost instantaneously.

These microexpressions are the key to seeing through the sort of deceptive expressions that the aforementioned studies discuss. Certainly, your peer may be using a facial expression in a way that doesn’t just display the emotion in question, but their emotion is not completely concealed. It comes out in the form of a microexpression.

Still, this new cultural research helps elaborate on two complexities. First, many researchers may take for granted that the presence of expressions as showing underlying emotions. Such perceptions must take into account the possibility that others’ expressions are being used instrumentally.

Second, we must revisit the perennial issue of how to contextualize basic emotions into the admittedly distinctive manifestations that we see across cultures. Instead of speaking in terms of underlying emotions, some indigenous groups can simply describe the behaviors. What does this say about deception in those cultures? About emotional openness?

These are even more reasons to see what Humintell can do to better let you read microexpressions and to allow us to incorporate cultural differences into our people reading.

Framing a Reciprocal Interview

What is the impact of offering an interviewee a bottle of water?

This seemingly innocuous question actually delves into major questions both with regard to communication but interviewing techniques more specifically. By looking at this basic question in a recent study, Humintell’s Drs. David Matsumoto and Hyisung Hwang were attempting to look at the notion of reciprocity and whether more reciprocal interviewing tactics contribute to boosting rapport and information gathering.

The subject of reciprocity essentially looks at the idea that people want to return or reciprocate favors offered to them. So, if an interviewee is offered the simple kindness of bottled water, they would be more likely to feel obliged to provide additional information during the course of the interview.

Reciprocity is just one form of what is known as “social influence.” The theoretical literature identifies six principles of social influence that hold across cultures, but this study focuses on reciprocity which had been identified as one of the more powerful and pervasive aspects of social influence.

The study in question divided experimental groups around this simple treatment, offering water to half the participants. They hypothesized that this would boost rapport between interviewer and interviewee and would result in more relevant and plausible information.

These experimental groups were also divided internally between those who were asked to lie and those asked to tell the truth about whether they had stolen a $200 check. The experiment was set up to incentivize participants to lie to their best ability, as they were told that being suspected of deception would result in an extra-long questionnaire after the interview.

Drs. Matsumoto and Hwang found general support for their hypotheses. Liars tended to give more relevant and plausible details after being offered water. Interestingly, neither ethnicity nor culture had an impact. Rapport was also boosted by the reciprocal treatment.

This has significant ramifications for both interviewing tactics and efforts to boost rapport in social situations. When rapport was high, the interrogation proved more fruitful, and reciprocity helped accomplish that! This means that when interviewing an individual, efforts intended to elicit reciprocity may be helpful, even though an actual interview situation is generally a bit higher stakes.

But what does this mean for those of us who are just trying to get better at reading people? Sure, we can offer people we meet bottles of water, but that might be socially out of place! However, the basic principle of reciprocity will hold.

By offering something, be it a compliment, personal information about ourselves, or a gift, we can help create a sense of reciprocity, boosting rapport and better enabling us to know about other people. This is not just some manipulative tactic but also a way of developing better interactions and getting to know people!

Olympic-Level Emotions

(L-R) Silver medalist US Chris Mazdzer, gold medalist Austria’s David Gleirscher, and bronze medalist Germany’s Johannes Ludwig pose on the podium during the victory ceremony in the men’s luge singles during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games, at the Olympic Sliding Centre on February 11, 2018 in Pyeongchang. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

Can the Olympics teach us anything about reading people?

Most of these blogs have been devoted to reading people’s emotions when they are being actively concealed, such as during efforts to detect deception. However, the Winter Olympics give us an opportunity to read people exhibiting unfiltered, raw emotions. With emotions as high as they are during the Games, few people would attempt to conceal their emotions, even if they weren’t so physically exhausted!

Instead of having to work to decipher microexpressions, Dr. David Matsumoto’s experience as an Olympic coach has given him unique insight into the way Olympians express emotions. Of course, because microexpressions are really just shorter macroexpressions, these blatant cases give us something to look for in more fleeting situations.

For example, after examining photos from top competitors in the 2004 Olympic Games, Dr. Matsumoto observed that the winners almost all sported pronounced, genuine smiles. He referred to these as the Duchenne smile, and the genuine nature of the setting showcases these as truly prototypical expressions of happiness.

These involved: “smiles that involve not only the smiling muscle that pulls the lip corners up but also the muscle around the eyes, which lifts the cheeks, narrow the eyelids and produces crow’s feet wrinkles.”

Similarly, this same investigation looked at the microexpressions present in athletes just following the end of the match. Immediately after victory, an athlete would show a fleeting expression of pure, unadulterated triumph, regardless of what culture they were from. Similarly, a defeated athlete exhibited consistently sad microexpressions.

The prevalence and universality of these expressions helped establish the universal nature of these emotions. However, they are not necessarily innate expressions. How could Dr. Matsumoto rule out the possibility that this behavior is simply learned from watching other athletes?

The answer to this question came when he decided to examine a series of blind judo athletes during the 2004 Paralympic Games. Certainly athletes that are blind from birth could not have learned a purely visual emotional cue!

In fact, their facial expressions were indistinguishable from the respectively triumphant or defeated expressions of sighted athletes. This was also the case for their genuine, Duchenne, smiles upon receipt of medals. These results suggest that victory or defeat in the Olympic games brings out our innate and universal expressions, and these are the same sort of basic expressions that we have delved into throughout this blog.

You might find all this interesting but still aren’t sure how this is relevant to anything. Well, all of these expressions, both in macro or micro form, are keys to effectively reading people. By looking at situations where the expression is as blatant as after an Olympic match, you can better learn how to read those expressions during more subtle and deception-based situations.

Also, with this knowledge in hand, go out and watch the Olympics! Can you spot these expressions? Trying actual applications like this can make you a better people reader, and we are excited to offer some more observations in next week’s blog!