Do you think you have the skills to read people’s emotions through their facial expressions? Yes, it is a skill that not everyone can do. But you don’t have to become a psychiatrist or superpowers to gain the ability to read others’ emotions.
This article will tell you how to read other people’s feelings by reading their verbal and nonverbal cues. Reading people’s emotions is an important part of communication. It can help you understand what others feel even if they can’t use words to express it.
The Ability To Read Others
According to Psychology Today, you need to have real superpowers to read other people’s minds. But we can effectively intuit what other people feel and think. This technique is also known as Empathic Accuracy.
The skill requires identifying cues telegraphed by the person’s body language and tone of voice. Facial expressions are micromotor movements in the face generated through our emotions. To interpret facial expressions, you really have to pay attention to every facial movement from the nose-wrinkling to facial twerk.
The importance of understanding the message behind their facial expressions is to gather nonverbal information on how the person feels to respond accordingly.
For example, the person you are talking to starts yawning in the middle of the conversation. This could be a sign that they are bored, tired, or disinterested. It’s a clear signal that you either change the topic or maybe it’s just time to end the conversation.
How Does Our Brain Process Emotions
Our brain plays an important role in understanding other people’s facial expressions. The largest regions of the brain are in charge of interpreting what the eyes can see. The brain’s “Visual System” is the combination of the human brain areas that reads facial expressions. This system is located in the occipital lobe or the lower back area of our brain.
The visual system does not function alone; it works with the other areas of the brain, including the amygdala. For example, when we look at a person’s face, the amygdala’s brain cells send electrical signals, called spikes, as a response. The Fusiform gyrus of the visual system and the amygdala function as the face perception network of the brain.
In the amygdala, emotion-tracking neurons are responsible for detecting the emotional intensity of a person. In contrast, the ambiguity coding neurons are the ones that indicate the ambiguity of the seen emotion.
Verbal Vs Non-verbal Communication
Most of us think that communication is simply an exchange of words between two people talking. However, nonverbal communication is as equally as important as verbal communication.
Verbal communication can send our message across through sounds, words, and cultural language. While non-verbal communication, on the other hand, is body movements, facial expressions, and gestures that we do as we speak to send the message that we want to convey effectively.
Non-verbal Communication Through Facial Expressions
Looking at a person’s face during a conversation can give you more information about an individual. Our faces can openly express our emotions and mental state. Facial expressions are unique configurations of our body that can be universal to all regardless the age, religion, gender, and culture.
Even if you cannot understand the other person’s verbal language, as long as you can decode facial expressions, you will still understand the emotions they wanted to relay. Communicating through facial expression can give us a deeper insight into a person’s emotions. Facial expressions through facial features:
Eyebrows
For facial recognition, eyebrows are just as important as our eyes. They are also used to express our emotions. A raised eyebrow can simply mean that you’re surprised. When you feel angry, you tend to lower or knit them together. When the inner corners of your eyebrows are drawn up, it could mean that you’re sad.
Mouth
We often use our mouths to mask our real emotions. For example, when we feel sad or angry and want to deceive others, we fake a smile. But forcing a smile could not hide the fact that micro expressions are still there to convey our real emotions. For example, lip biting could be a tell-tale sign of anxiety, and pursed lips could mean distaste.
Why Do We Read Facial Expressions?
Facial expressions emphasize one’s speech and relay our emotional state. We can easily manipulate our facial muscles to let others know what we think or feel.
Being able to recognize facial expressions can also give us the upper hand. From business deals to a game of poker, if you have the skills to identify certain emotions through facial expressions, your internal truth meter will automatically tell you if you can close a deal or not.
How To Read Other People’s Emotions
Reading others through their facial expression and physical movements is essential in verbal and nonverbal communication. It makes it possible for you to adapt your communication style and message and ensure that the other person receives it.
Some people are not good with verbal expressions. However, you have to keep in mind that, in communication, the words we hear are just a fraction of the message relayed.
Here are some tips on how you can get better at reading emotions:
Translate Verbal Cues
Verbal cues are messages that are promptly conveyed through words. It is directly delivered from one person to another in a spoken language. Verbal cues can be direct or indirect. Direct verbal cues are instructions or statements that are clearly articulated. A command such as “go and brush your teeth” is an example of a direct verbal cue.
An indirect verbal cue is a prompt that is less obvious and most of the time comes in a question form. A person sending this type of cue requires a response or an answer from the listener. The question, “Did you know how this happened?” is an example of an indirect verbal cue.
Actively listening to verbal cues can easily let you know how the other person is feeling. In addition, it can help you get a better perspective of the message that the speaker wanted to convey or feel.
Pay Attention to Their Appearance
How people dress or look says a lot about how they feel. Stress, anger, and tiredness can weigh heavily on the face as they can cause visible wrinkles due to repetitive furrowing of the eyebrows and frowning.
How we wear our clothes or fix our appearance reflects our goals, values, and attitude. Some people even wear their emotions through their tattoos, pendants, or graphic shirts.
A t-shirt with a big smiley face printed in front tends to make us feel relaxed and happy. Likewise, those who change into workout clothes after they wake up in the morning helps them feel energized. The clothes we wear can intensify our mental and emotional energy. It can also be one way of telling others of our emotional state.
Try To Understand Facial Expressions
According to the American Psychological Association, facial expressions are culturally specific and have their own verbal language. A person can control facial expressions but micro-expressions, on the other hand, are involuntary.
When an emotion is felt, micro-expressions in the face can typically last for at least 0.5 to 4 seconds before a person can try and conceal it. However, microexpressions can happen so fast that some people can’t even recognize or catch them in real-time.
When an individual feels happy, micro expressions such as raised cheek creases form on the eye’s outer area or lips drawn up and back. If a person is angry deep frown lines, teeth grinding, or eyes bulging can happen. Microexpressions occur when a person attempts to hide their real emotions.
Observe Their Body Language
Reading other people’s emotions through body language can be easier than decoding their facial expressions. Body language is useful in understanding other people’s feelings and unspoken intentions.
Findings suggest that our brain prioritizes to believe non-verbal signals compared to what others express in words. When your partner says the words “I love you”, but their actions say otherwise, your brain is programmed to believe the unspoken intentions.
Human beings rely on verbal communication to send and receive information, but it is also important that you observe the body language as well.
Observe People’s Eyes
Watch people’s eyes. They will tell you their real emotions. We all know that the eyes are the windows to the soul. No matter how hard we try to hide our emotions and intentions, the eyes tell everything.
The eyes can convey different feelings such as excitement, distrust, contentment, fear, and more. They are considered the most genuine part of our body that we can’t control.
The pupil size can also reflect our emotions. When one feels happy, the pupils involuntarily dilate and contract when we feel sad.
When the pupil shifts from side to side, this could mean that the person is indecisive, confused, or insecure. When a person consistently maintains eye contact, they could be trying to look intimidating. While avoiding eye contact can indicate dishonesty.
Try to Be Objective
In reading others’ emotions, you must first learn how to remain objective and have an open mind. Your past experiences and personal feeling should not influence your opinions. Judging people immediately can cause you to misread their real intentions.
You can not simply know a person’s whole story by relying on your logic alone. You have to surrender other vital forms of data and information to read others. When you want to interpret facial expressions and body language, try to leave your preconceptions and biases out the door.
Notice Their Posture
How people lean, slouch, or hold their heads high says a lot about their attitude. Posture can also help us identify positive and negative emotions.
If you’re holding your head up high means that you are confident. When a person slouches, it might indicate shyness or low self-esteem. When a person has their hands on their hips, it could mean that they are angry or desire to dominate the situation.
Having a difficult conversation could place a person in an awkward situation where emotions are often difficult to read. They are masked by other emotions such as anger, nervousness, or stress. Noticing a person’s posture could give away their real emotions.
Pay Attention Their Tone of Voice
Trying to notice the words and the tone of voice used in a conversation can also help you understand a person’s emotions. The tone of our voice affects our emotional expressions. Sound frequencies create vibrations.
The volume and how we say the words can give away how we feel and affect how others react to us. We use different voice tones to get our point across when we speak. When speaking, using an accusatory tone may send negative emotional vibes, while a positive tone feels soothing and more welcoming.
Do Not Avoid Small Talk
Some people feel anxious when engaging in small talks. But a short and friendly conversation could be one way of getting to know a person. It can give you an idea of how that person acts or respond to normal situations.
Small talks can also help practice your listening skills and how attentive you are in noticing non-verbal signals.
Listen to Your Gut Feelings
In meeting a person for the first time, gut feelings occur quickly before you could even have the chance to think. Our gut will let us know if that person is emitting a friendly presence or not.
Our physical sensation has its way of showing us the signals that we might have overlooked. It is a primal response that our body has that we use for self-protection. Our gut feelings could easily interpret the emotional atmosphere surrounding a person. It can tell us if they could be someone that we can feel at ease with or not.
Scanning a Person’s Overall Energy
Emotions can seep out through physical cues. For example, notice the energy around people you talk to or interact with.
A handshake, for example, is universally accepted as a form of greeting. But other cultures use it as a different kind of gesture too. A handshake could be a sign of hierarchy for some. The amount of pressure during a handshake can also convey hidden emotions. A firm grip could be a sign of confidence.
A hug is a great way to show affection. It could also mean that you want to offer comfort and security. But the intensity energy is given off, and the duration of a hug can also indicate a person’s emotions. When someone hugs you from the side with a quick pat at the back, it could indicate that this person is uncomfortable with you. But a hug done with romantic feelings can also be felt differently.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes the body expresses emotions that our voices can’t. Facial expressions are codes used as instruments to help us read and understand others’ emotions. The ability to read emotions helps us understand other people’s internal state and point of view at a deeper level. Facial expressions are universally the same despite the differences in culture, language or religion. Learning the different ways to read how people express their emotions can help us communicate with others more effectively and sincerely.
If you are still having problems understanding and interpreting people’s feelings through emotional expressions, book an appointment with us at Kentucky Counseling Center (KCC). Each member of KCC are highly trained, professional, certified, and experienced in providing optimal mental care for Kentucky and Ohio residents. KCC also offers Online Telehealth Counseling Services via online appointments for your convenience.
Do you think you have the skills to read people’s emotions through their facial expressions? Yes, it is a skill that not everyone can do. But you don’t have to become a psychiatrist or superpowers to gain the ability to read others’ emotions.
This article will tell you how to read other people’s feelings by reading their verbal and nonverbal cues. Reading people’s emotions is an important part of communication. It can help you understand what others feel even if they can’t use words to express it.
The Ability To Read Others
According to Psychology Today, you need to have real superpowers to read other people’s minds. But we can effectively intuit what other people feel and think. This technique is also known as “Empathic Accuracy”.
The skill requires identifying cues telegraphed by the person’s body language and tone of voice. Facial expressions are micromotor movements in the face generated through our emotions. To interpret facial expressions, you have to pay attention to every facial movement from the nose-wrinkling to facial twerk.
The importance of understanding the message behind their facial expressions is to gather nonverbal information on how the person feels to respond accordingly.
For example, the person you are talking to starts yawning in the middle of the conversation. This could be a sign that they are bored, tired, or disinterested. It’s a clear signal that you either change the topic or maybe it’s just time to end the conversation.
How Does Our Brain Process Emotions
Our brain plays an important role in understanding other people’s facial expressions. This is because the largest regions of the brain are in charge of interpreting what the eyes can see. The brain’s Visual System is the combination of the human brain areas that reads facial expressions. This system is located in the occipital lobe or the lower back area of our brain.
The visual system does not function alone; it works with the other areas of the brain, including the amygdala. For example, when we look at a person’s face, the amygdala’s brain cells send electrical signals, called “spikes”, as a response. The Fusiform gyrus of the visual system and the amygdala function as the face perception network of the brain.
In the amygdala, emotion-tracking neurons are responsible for detecting the emotional intensity of a person. In contrast, the ambiguity coding neurons are the ones that indicate the ambiguity of the seen emotion.
Verbal Vs Non-verbal Communication
Most of us think that communication is simply an exchange of words between two people talking. However, nonverbal communication is as equally as important as verbal communication.
Verbal communication can send our message across through sounds, words, and cultural language. While non-verbal communication, on the other hand, is body movements, facial expressions, and gestures that we do as we speak to send the message that we want to convey effectively.
Non-verbal Communication Through Facial Expressions
Looking at a person’s face during a conversation can give you more information about an individual. Our faces can openly express our emotions and mental state. Facial expressions are unique configurations of our body that can be universal to all regardless the age, religion, gender, and culture.
Even if you cannot understand the other person’s verbal language, as long as you can decode facial expressions, you will still understand the emotions they wanted to relay. Communicating through facial expression can give us a deeper insight into a person’s emotions. Facial expressions through facial features:
Eyebrows
For facial recognition, eyebrows are just as important as our eyes. They are also used to express our emotions.
A raised eyebrow can simply mean that you’re surprised. When your feel angry, you tend to lower or knit them together. When the inner corners of your eyebrows are drawn up, it could mean that you’re sad.
Mouth
We often use our mouths to mask our real emotions. For example, when we feel sad or angry and want to deceive others, we fake a smile. But forcing a smile could not hide the fact that micro expressions are still there to convey our real emotions. For example, lip biting could be a tell-tale sign of anxiety, and pursed lips could mean distaste.
Why Do We Read Facial Expressions?
Facial expressions are used to emphasize one’s speech and relay our emotional state. We can easily manipulate our facial muscles to let others know what we think or feel.
Being able to recognize facial expressions can also give us the upper hand. From business deals to a game of poker, if you have the skills to identify certain emotions through facial expressions, your internal truth meter will automatically tell you if you can close a deal or not.
How To Read Other People’s Emotions
Reading others through their facial expression and physical movements is essential in verbal and nonverbal communication. It makes it possible for you to adapt your communication style and message and ensure that the other person receives it.
Some people are not good with verbal expressions. However, you have to keep in mind that, in communication, the words we hear are just a fraction of the message relayed. Here are some tips on how you can get better at reading emotions:
Translate Verbal Cues
Verbal cues are messages that are promptly conveyed through words. It is directly delivered from one person to another person in a spoken language. Verbal cues can be direct or indirect. Direct verbal cues are instructions or statements that are clearly articulated. A command such as “go and brush your teeth” is an example of a direct verbal cue.
An indirect verbal cue is a prompt that is less obvious and most of the time comes in a question form. A person sending this type of cue requires a response or an answer from the listener. The question, “Did you know how this happened?” is an example of an indirect verbal cue.
Actively listening to verbal cues can easily let you know how the other person is feeling. It can help you get a better perspective of the message that the speaker wanted to convey or feel.
Pay Attention to Their Appearance
How people dress or look says a lot about how they feel. Stress, anger, and tiredness can weigh heavily on the face as they can cause visible wrinkles due to repetitive furrowing of the eyebrows and frowning.
How we wear our clothes or fix our appearance reflects our goals, values, and attitude. Some people even tend to wear their emotions through their tattoos, pendants, or graphic shirts.
A t-shirt with a big smiley face printed in front tends to make us feel relaxed and happy. Likewise, those who change into workout clothes after they wake up in the morning helps them feel energized. The clothes we wear can intensify our mental and emotional energy. It can also be one way of telling others of our emotional state.
Try To Understand Facial Expressions
According to the American Psychological Association, facial expressions are culturally specific and have their own verbal language. A person can control facial expressions, but micro-expressions, on the other hand, are involuntary.
When an emotion is felt, micro-expressions in the face can typically last for at least 0.5 to 4 seconds before a person can try and conceal it. Microexpressions can happen so fast that some people can’t even recognize or catch them in real-time.
When an individual feels happy, micro expressions such as raised cheek, crow’s feet on the eye’s outer area, or lips drawn up and back appear. If a person is angry deep frown lines, teeth grinding, or eyes bulging can happen. Microexpressions occur when a person attempts to hide their real emotions.
Observe Their Body Language
Reading other people’s emotions through body language can be easier than decoding their facial expressions. Body language is useful in understanding other people’s feelings and unspoken intentions.
Findings suggest that our brain prioritizes to believe non-verbal signals compared to what others express in words. When your partner says the words “I love you”, but their actions say otherwise, your brain is programmed to believe the unspoken intentions.
Human beings rely on verbal communication to send and receive information, but it is also important that you observe the body language as well.
Observe People’s Eyes
Watch people’s eyes. They will tell you their real emotions. We all know that the eyes are the windows to the soul. No matter how hard we try to hide our own emotions and intentions, the eyes tell everything.
The eyes can convey different feelings such as excitement, distrust, contentment, fear, and more. They are considered the most sincere part of our body that we can’t control.
The pupil size can also reflect our emotions. When one feels happy, the pupils involuntarily dilate and contract when we feel sad.
When the pupil shifts from side to side, this could mean that the person is indecisive, confused, or insecure. When a person consistently maintains eye contact, they could be trying to look intimidating. While avoiding eye contact can indicate dishonesty.
Try to Be Objective
In reading others’ emotions, you must first learn how to remain objective and have an open mind. Your past experiences and personal feeling should not influence your opinions. Judging people immediately can cause you to misread their real intentions.
You can not simply know a person’s whole story by relying on your logic alone. You have to surrender other vital forms of data and information to be able to read others. When you want to interpret facial expressions and body language, try to leave your preconceptions and biases out the door.
Notice Their Posture
How people lean, slouch, or hold their heads high says a lot about their attitude. Posture can also help us identify positive and negative emotions.
If you hold your head up high, it means that you are confident. When a person slouches, it might indicate shyness or low self-esteem. When a person has their hands on their hips, it could mean that their angry or have the desire to dominate the situation.
Having a difficult conversation with someone could place a person in an awkward situation where emotions are often difficult to read. They are masked by other emotions such as anger, nervousness, or stress. Noticing a person’s posture could give away their real emotions.
Pay Attention Their Tone of Voice
Trying to notice the words and the tone of voice used in a conversation can also help you understand a person’s emotions. The tone of our voice affects our emotional expressions. Sound frequencies create vibrations.
The volume and how we say the words can give away how we feel and affect how others react to us. We use different voice tones to get our point across when we speak. When speaking, using an accusatory tone may send negative emotional vibes, while a positive tone feels soothing and more welcoming.
Do Not Avoid Small Talk
Some people feel anxious when engaging in small talks. But a short and friendly conversation could be one way of getting to know a person. It can give you an idea of how that person acts or respond to normal situations. Small talks can also help practice your listening skills and how attentive you are in noticing non-verbal signals.
Listen to Your Gut Feelings
In meeting a person for the first time, gut feelings occur quickly before you could even have the chance to think. Our gut will let us know if that person is emitting a friendly presence or not.
Our physical sensation has its way of showing us the signals that we might have overlooked. It is a primal response that our body has that we use for self-protection. Our gut feelings could easily interpret the emotional atmosphere surrounding a person. It can tell us if they could be someone that we can feel at ease with or not.
Scanning a Person’s Overall Energy
Emotions can seep out through physical cues. Notice the energy around people with whom you talk to or interact.
A handshake, for example, is universally accepted as a form of greeting. But other cultures use it as a different kind of gesture too. A handshake could be a sign of hierarchy for some. The amount of pressure a person applies during a handshake can also convey hidden emotions. A firm grip could be a sign of confidence.
A hug is a great way to show affection. It could also mean that you want to offer comfort and security. But the intensity, energy, and duration of a hug can also indicate a person’s emotions. When someone hugs you from the side with a quick pat at the back, it could indicate that this person is uncomfortable with you. But a hug done with romantic feelings can also be felt differently.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes the body expresses emotions that our voices can’t. Facial expressions are codes used as instruments to help us read and understand others’ emotions. The ability to read emotions helps us understand other people’s internal state and point of view at a deeper level. Facial expressions are universally the same despite the differences in culture, language or religion. Learning the different ways to read how people express their emotions can help us communicate with others more effectively and sincerely.
If you are still having problems in understanding and interpreting people’s feelings through emotional expressions, book an appointment with us at Kentucky Counseling Center (KCC). Each member of KCC are highly trained, professional, certified, and experienced in providing optimal mental care for Kentucky and Ohio residents. KCC also offers Online Telehealth Counseling Services via online appointments for your convenience.
