3 Ways to Spot Genuine vs. Fake Smiles
Oftentimes, people will smile even if they don’t feel like it. It lessens the awkwardness of social situations, and it helps the person seem more approachable. These various smiles can come at events ranging from job interviews to public occasions. People may smile the whole event without ever being even close to happy. But, the truth is that smiling makes people look a lot more approachable and accessible, but at the same time, it’s important to understand the difference between a real and fake smile.
Genuine Smiles:
When real smiles occur, there are two muscles that primarily flex upwards in the face as was recognized by the French physician Guillaume Duchenne. This involves the major zygomatic muscle that is heavily controlled by the person voluntarily. This is the “smile for the camera” type smile. One that is done effortlessly. At the same time the oculi muscle contracts and forms wrinkles at the outer edges of the eyes showing the smile to be genuine.
Why We Fake Smile:
Your eyes will betray your feelings quite a lot. There are many situations where you are “faking” a smile, and at some point, we all do it. Sometimes its smiling at a joke that’s not funny, and other times its’s because a friend is taking an unwanted picture of us. Yet other times, it’s when we want to make a person feel good about something even if we aren’t happy about it ourselves.
3 Signs of Fake Smiles:
Three signs that a smile is fake can be found in the following:
- Absence of Closed Eyes: If the person’s eyes are not squinted or closing, then the smile is unlikely to be genuine. The absence of movement in the eye area is a great clue that the person is taking it to make another person feel better.
- Absence of Crow’s Feet: If the absence of the wrinkles around the eyes is there then you can tell that the person is forcing the smile and not naturally allowing the face to contour to the way the face would move if one was smiling naturally.
- Visibility of the Bottom Teeth: If you can see the person’s bottom teeth you can, in fact, tell they are pushing their lips too far apart and making the smile more fake than genuine. The zygomatic muscles are not moving as they should be, and they are probably faking a “cheesy” smile to look good for the camera.
Although we all use the fake smiles at some point, it’s important to understand when people’s smiles are genuine versus not genuine in social situations. This can determine how you react and how you feel how you react to that person!
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