A skilled card player—eyes hidden by dark shades and features kept as still as possible—looks at their hand. Any small giveaway that they’re bluffing or holding great cards could lose them a painfully large sum of money. Sometimes it helps to have a “poker face.”
Yet in day-to-day life—when socializing with family, friends and new acquaintances, for example—you might be better served letting your features fly free. Our research shows that moving your face in some way, whether you’re smiling, raising an eyebrow or wrinkling your nose, may help people warm to you more.
In a recent study, we found that people who were more facially expressive were more liked by a new social partner, which could explain why humans have evolved to have such expressive faces. Indeed, our species is likely more facially expressive than any other. People produce, on average, 101 facial movements per minute in a typical social interaction.
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To understand why facial expressivity is so beneficial, we first need to emphasize just how crucial social bonding is to human survival. Throughout most of our evolutionary history, our species has relied on tight-knit communities to keep ourselves fed, sheltered and protected from predators and dangerous outsiders. Managing social relationships was literally a matter of life or death. Otherwise you might have faced the tiger in the bushes alone. Any skill or behavior that improved someone’s ability to create and keep lifesaving bonds was likely to persist in our gene pool and cultural repertoires over the generations. And our research suggests that facial expressivity may fall in this category.
In our study, 52 people were filmed in an online social interaction with a researcher who posed as another participant. These dialogues played out over a video platform, so people could see one another’s face. Unbeknownst to the real participants, the researcher orchestrated various challenging social scenarios, such as telling an awful joke or demanding 80 percent of a reward in a negotiation. These situations mimicked everyday experiences, such as social conflict, embarrassment or an attempt to make a good impression.
Throughout, we observed how people’s face moved. We also obtained recordings of more than 1,300 participants in free-flowing conversations with other (real) participants online. Automated software then coded the small facial muscle movements they made during these interactions.
Interestingly, more agreeable, extraverted or neurotic people, as measured by a questionnaire, were more facially expressive. People with these personality traits may devote more time and energy to social interactions—whether because they enjoy socializing or have greater-than-average concerns about how they come across to others. And that added effort could be worthwhile, we found. After these interactions, the participants and their social partners rated how much they liked each other—as did 176 other participants who viewed video clips of these people. The pattern was clear: people who were more facially expressive were more liked by others.
But why would facial expressivity improve someone’s ability to build social bonds? Imagine meeting someone new and trying to figure out if they’re a good fit as a friend, colleague or romantic partner. You might wonder if you can trust them, if they will help you or harm you—and whether you can even understand one another. Someone who is easier to read may seem to be a more appealing prospect than someone who is more guarded.
Our findings support this interpretation. After their social interaction, participants reported their thoughts and feelings at various points throughout the exchange. Later we compared what people were thinking with what others—who saw video of those participants—“read” in their face. It turns out that more facially expressiveparticipants were indeed broadcasting what was on their mind through their face. And people viewing these videos thought the expressive participants appeared easier to read, which strongly related to their likability.
Simply put, being facially expressive may give others a sense that they understand you, which they like. This in turn supports the suggestion that the key function of facial expressivity is to make us more predictable. Our work also underscores that facial expressions do far more than just communicate emotions. We might raise our eyebrows to show we’re listening intently, share a knowing smile with a friend or use a stern look to stop someone in their tracks. Sending these kinds of messages doesn’t involve any particular emotional state. We also found that likability tracked with expressivity and not a particular emotion. You might guess, for instance, that people with cheerful expressions are best liked. But although happy expressions were highly likable, expressive people were better liked even when they weren’t particularly smiley.
Furthermore, we found that participants’ level of expressivity didn’t change across situations or with different social partners, even as the specific emotions involved shifted. This suggests that facial expressivity is a consistent trait of an individual rather than something that changes depending on the context.
That last finding may leave you wondering why some people remain comparatively inexpressive across situations. In future research we want to investigate that question. For some, the costs of revealing oneself may outweigh the benefits, and there could be alternative routes to being an attractive social partner.
And clearly, regardless of how expressive we tend to be overall, we can also make choices about sharing more of ourselves in certain situations. The option to be more open and expressive may be scary—leaving people vulnerable—but our work shows that it comes with rewards. So for now, we think it’s best to leave your poker face at the card table.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about for Mind Matters? Please send suggestions to Scientific American’s Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas at dyuhas@sciam.com.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
