Every human being – no matter what their cultural background is – will express fundamental emotions in the same way (but only for a fraction of a second).
Flashes of feeling
A microexpression is a brief, involuntary facial expression that reveals our true feelings about another person or situation. These ‘flashes of feeling’ are apparent for just one 25th of a second. You might not think it’s possible to spot them but we can actually learn to recognise and interpret microexpressions.
Fundamental emotions
Now, we are not remotely suggesting that recognising microexpressions is an essential skill for our readers. After all, our members are expats, not secret agents or interrogators! But as you all live in a foreign culture, we thought you might be intrigued to know that people, no matter where they are in the world, express fundamental emotions in the same way.
A universal truth
It was a guy called Charles Darwin who first suggested this might be the case. Later on, an American psychologist Dr Paul Ekman set out to confirm it, travelling across Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, the US before visiting a tribe in a remote part of Papua New Guinea. He found that everywhere he went people did indeed express seven universal emotions (surprise, fear, contempt, disgust, anger, sadness, happiness) in the same fleeting fashion.
Our true feelings
Two researchers called Haggard and Isaacs had in fact already coined the word ‘microexpressions’ but it was Ekman who realised that they are the key to recognising these seven fundamental emotions. If you’re curious to know more, this guide runs through all seven emotions and explains the ‘giveaways’ that Ekman observed. For example, down-turned lips indicate disgust. If someone pulls one side of the mouth up it indicates contempt. Once you familiarise yourself with the ‘tell tale’ signs, you will, of course, be more likely to spot them.
A comforting thought
But, again, we are not suggesting people should consider becoming experts in this field. From a certain perspective, we might say that microexpressions ‘leak emotions’ that people don’t want others to know they are feeling (especially if they’re playing poker!) and perhaps we should respect that. So let us simply consider that microexpressions underscore how, at our core, all human beings’ instinctive emotional reactions are universal. When trying to adapt to a new culture, one where everything and everyone seems so different, perhaps this can be a comforting thought to you.
This article was originally published for the thousands of expat partners that Global Connection supports around the globe. It is reproduced here in its original form.
