THE MIND’S CANVAS 169BOX 45: MY LIPS SAY I LOVE YOU, BUT MY LOOKS
SAY OTHERWISEI am amazed at how many times positive words pour from people’s
mouths while their faces gives off negative nonverbals that clearly contra-
dict what is being said. At a recent party, one of the guests was comment-
ing how pleased he was that his kids had good jobs. He said this, with a
less-than-generous smile and tight jaw muscles, as those standing around
congratulated him. Later, his wife told me privately that her husband was,
in fact, extremely upset that the kids were just barely getting by in their
meaningless jobs that were going nowhere. His words said one thing, but
his face said quite another.a variety of reasons, making them more difficult to detect. For example,
we certainly don’t want to show elation when we are dealt a powerful
hand of cards in a poker game, or we may not want our colleagues to
know we received a larger financial bonus then they did. We learn to try
to conceal our happiness and excitement in circumstances where we
deem it unwise to reveal our good fortune. Nevertheless, as with nega-
tive body cues, subtle or restrained positive nonverbals can be detected
through careful observation and assessment of other subtle corroborative
behaviors. For instance, our faces may leak a twinge of excitement that
by itself, might not be enough to convince an astute observer that we are
truly happy. However, our feet might provide additional corroborative
evidence of excitement, helping to validate the belief that the positive
emotion is genuine (see box 46).
Genuine and unrestrained feelings of happiness are reflected in the
face and neck. Positive emotions are revealed by the loosening of the fur-
rowed lines on the forehead, relaxation of muscles around the mouth,
emergence of full lips (they are not compressed or tight lipped), and wid-
ening of the eye area as surrounding muscles relax. When we are truly