Insincere smiles are easily spotted. You need more than pulled back lips
showing off your pearly whites to convince someone that you’re feeling
happy, pleased, or any other positive emotion. If your eyes aren’t engaged
with your mouth – that is, if your lips pull back in a smile and your eyes are
dull, listless, or averting the other person’s gaze – you’re sure to be spotted
as insincere.The fake smile, like the one in Figure 4-2, looks manufactured and unnatural.Find another word to replace ‘Cheese’ when you’re taking someone’s photo-
graph and you want him to smile. This word pulls back the zygomatic major
muscles resulting in a false smile and an artificial-looking photo.If you’re with someone who smiles at you and says he’s happy, but a
little voice inside tells you that something’s amiss, listen to the voice.
Look at the eyes and the cheeks for confirmation. To spot a genuine smile,
look at the fleshy part of the eye between the brow and the eyelid. If it
moves downwards and the end of the eyebrows dip slightly, the smile is
for real.Figure 4-2:
Insincere
people use
only their
mouths
when
smiling.
Chapter 4: Facial Expressions 67