Body Language

You can tolerate a lot of awkwardness in another person if he shows by his

facial expression that he doesn’t purposely want to be difficult without a

good reason. By showing that he’s doing his best to be amiable in the circum-

stances, his behaviour becomes more acceptable than in someone who’s dis-

agreeable in both behaviour and style.

Cecilia had a noon meeting with a potential new client. Her train into

Paddington was delayed and she had to rush to catch her tube. When she

exited at the right station, she was unable to find the building. Cecilia prides

herself on her punctuality and began to worry that she was going to be late.

She saw two men walking briskly toward her. From the pace of their stride, it

was clear they were focused on where they were going. Cecilia, appreciating

their needs, walked towards them with a mixed look of openness, concern,

and confusion on her face, making clear that she was a nice person in need

of help. She matched the men’s pace, apologised for interrupting them, and

asked if they were familiar with the area, which they were. When she first

68 Part II: Starting at the Top

Spot the smile

In 1862 the French neurophysiologist Guillaume

Duchenne de Boulogne published his studies of

facial expressions. De Boulogne used electro

diagnostics and electrical stimulation to distin-

guish between genuine and false smiles. In

addition to using the heads of people who had

been executed by the guillotine, De Boulogne’s

principal photographic subject was an old man

who had the rare condition of facial anaesthe-

sia. This unfortunate condition made him the

perfect subject for the scientist’s investigations,

because the electrodes used to stimulate the

muscles were undoubtedly uncomfortable, if

not quite painful.

With a hands-on approach, De Boulogne

twisted and pulled face muscles from various

angles and positions to discover which muscles

controlled which smiles. He identified two kinds

of smiles that are controlled by two different

muscle sets. The zygomatic majormuscles,

which run down the side of the face, are under

your conscious control. These muscles are

attached to the corners of the mouth and pull

the mouth back, exposing the teeth while pump-

ing up the cheeks. When you want to appear

friendly, subordinate, or show how much you’re

enjoying yourself when the opposite is true, you

rely on the zygomatic majors to produce a false

smile of fake enjoyment. The orbicularis oculi

are the muscles that pull the eyes back, make

them narrow, and produce laugh lines that radi-

ate from the outside corners of the eyes. The

orbicularis oculi act involuntarily and produce a

true smile.

Further research by Professor Paul Ekman of

the University of California, San Francisco and

University of Kentucky professor Dr Wallace V

Friesen reveal that the unconscious brain auto-

matically generates genuine smiles. When you

experience pleasure, the part of the brain that

processes feelings is stimulated, resulting in a

smile in which the mouth muscles move, the

cheeks lift, the eyes narrow, and the eyebrows

slightly dip.