Smiles Hide 

Many Messages 

- Some Unfriendly

           Smiles Hide Many Messages - Some Unfriendly, by Susan Pinker, discusses how often times the smiles you see in society are not always "real" smiles. Whether it be from heartbreak, anger, jealousy and many more, on the outside one may seem to always have this happy-go-lucky person but, on the inside, that person could really be hurting. We do not know everything that may be occurring in a persons life, especially if they are always smiling.
This article describes smiles as being a type of "morse code" because of the many different meanings behind them. In fact, in this article, they test how different types of smiles affect a person. The experiment involved people giving speeches about themselves for five minutes and the listener was told to smile in a certain way as they listened to the speech. There were intriguing differences in how people reacted to the different smiles. 

      This article caught my eye because as a college student, I am able to understand that when I myself am giving speeches, or simply introducing myself on the first day of class, I am subconsciously examining the facial reactions of everyone in the room. I am trying to figure what they could possibly be thinking. Am I too boring? Do I have something in my tooth? What are they thinking about me? All these questions come to my head when I am giving a speech or standing in front of an audience. This article helps me understand that I am not the only one. Not only does this happen at school, it can happen in the workplace as well. For example, say you are giving a presentation on a new ad campaign, the first time you present this to your co-workers, their facial reactions are going to be the first thing you look to in order to figure out how they are feeling about your presentation. 

        The facial reactions of people can help advertising companies in general figure out what works and what does not when it comes to persuading their audiences to purchase a product. We as humans interpret many things subconsciously, and a person's emotions are one of those things. When you come to think of it, the facial expressions and emotions of one person can really affect you and could really mean more than they seem.  

By: Dalila Perez