even if I deny it — leaks out. That’s what happened to Mary.
Our voluntary expressive system is the way we intentionally
signal our emotions. But our involuntary expressive system is in
many ways even more important: it is the way we have been
equipped by evolution to signal our authentic feelings.
“You must have had the experience where somebody
comments on your expression and you didn’t know you were
making it,” Ekman says. “Somebody asks you, ‘What are you
getting upset about?’ or ‘Why are you smirking?’ You can hear
your voice, but you can’t see your face. If we knew what was
on our face, we would be better at concealing it. But that
wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing. Imagine if there were a
switch that all of us had, to turn off the expressions on our face
at will. If babies had that switch, we wouldn’t know what they
were feeling. They’d be in trouble. You could make an
argument, if you wanted to, that the system evolved so that
parents would be able to take care of kids. Or imagine if you
were married to someone with a switch. It would be
impossible. I don’t think mating and infatuation and friendships
and closeness would occur if our faces didn’t work that way.”
Ekman slipped a tape from the O.J. Simpson trial into the
VCR. It showed Kato Kaelin, Simpson’s shaggy-haired