Happiness

When it comes to reading someone's body language, happiness tends to be one of the easiest emotions to recognize. However, the nonverbals of happiness range from exuberance to contentment, and though exuberance is easy to detect, detecting contentment can sometimes be quite a bit harder.

To imagine the nonverbals of exuberance, think of someone who just learned they won the lottery. Their eyes will open wide; their eyebrows will rise; their mouth will drop open, then form into a huge smile. They will start to bounce up and down, throw their hands in the air, and start to shake with excitement. On their way to claim their winnings, they will skip or walk with big quick strides, swinging their arms with their chest puffed out, their head up, and their shoulders back.

While exuberance is obvious, people who are content don't make big gestures or have easily identifiable facial expressions. As a result, all too often people confuse contentment with apathy, which is to say, someone who doesn't care that something good is happening.

Consider being a part of a group where it was just announced that everyone would be getting a big year-end bonus. Some people would be exuberant, jumping for joy, congratulating each other with wide smiles. A few people, however, may just seem content, as they are calm, relaxed, and look completely free of stress and worry. They might close their eyes, take a deep breath, exhale it slowly, and perhaps only the corners of their mouth might rise a little along with their eyebrows, but that's it.

It would be a mistake to confront these people and say, "Why aren't you excited?" or, "I thought you'd be happy about this," or "You should be smiling!" People express happiness in different ways, and if their expression of happiness is not what you expect, you should not demand they conform to your expectations. When people are content, we will have to work harder to detect their contentment, but we should not expect someone to bounce up and down in delight if that is not what they naturally do.

Beyond contentment, there are very good reasons why someone might not be showing the nonverbals of exuberance, even though they might actually be very happy. One of the best reasons comes from being a high-stakes poker player, where even the slightest show of happiness can cost you a substantial amount of money.

The game of poker is where we get the term, "Poker Face," meaning someone who does not show emotion with their face; as well as the expression of someone having a "Tell," meaning a nearly imperceptible non-verbal expression that can be used to interpret someone's emotion, even when they are doing everything in their power not to reveal their true feelings. A tell might be something as tiny as a quick twitch of the lip, a flutter of an eyelash, or a flaring of the nostrils. Poker players are particularly good at identifying tells, leading them to wear hats and sunglasses while they play in an attempt to not have any of their "Tells" tip off other players as to what cards they're holding.

Outside of high-stakes poker players, there are still times in the professional world where overt displays of happiness would be strategically unwise or even inappropriate.

For example, let's say you were negotiating a major business deal, and you proposed a contract to a customer that had an associated cost far beyond what you actually wanted from the deal. Perhaps you expected the customer to negotiate you down, so you added a lot of wiggle room in the price so that you could offer concessions without having to take a loss. If the customer looked at the contract and said, "This looks fine," and you suddenly showed the nonverbals of exuberance, the customer might see that you were extraordinarily happy, realize that the price you offered was far more than you expected them to accept, and then proceed to negotiate the price down. This scenario is why just about every negotiator has developed their own, "Poker face."

Another situation where you might want to mask the nonverbals of happiness is when showing happiness would be inappropriate.

For example, imagine you and your coworkers were competing for limited funds for a new initiative, such that several of your coworkers had submitted their own proposals for their own initiatives, but only one initiative would be able to get funding. If it was announced that you had won the competition, it would be inappropriate to show the nonverbals of exuberance, where you danced about throwing your hands in the air while laughing with delight. To be a gracious, professional, and mature winner, you should instead show the nonverbals of contentment, because even though you won, your other colleagues lost, and celebrating would have the effect of rubbing your victory in their faces.

Just as there are times when it is advantageous to suppress the nonverbals of happiness, there are also times where it is advantageous to fake the nonverbals of happiness - a phenomenon every adult knows all too well. One of the joys of watching children play is that as children have not mastered the art of masking their emotions, children at play unabashedly display all of the authentic nonverbals of any emotion they are feeling. Sadly, when we all grow into adulthood, we quickly learn that there are times where it is socially appropriate to fake the nonverbals of happiness.

A classic situation is when someone has told an unfunny joke - not necessarily because it's offensive, but perhaps only because it had a poorly executed setup and punchline. To avoid a situation where our not laughing would hurt the joke-teller's feelings, most of us would choose to force a laugh and fake a smile.

Interestingly, a quirk in human facial musculature gives practically everyone a "Tell," as to whether they are giving a fake smile or a real smile. Though we can consciously control the muscles around our mouth and pull our lips back and up into a smile, we cannot do the same with the muscles on the outside corners of our eyes, which will form wrinkles - often called "crow's feet" - when we are giving a genuine smile. This results in us being able to tell a fake smile from a real smile by watching to see if the outside corners of someone's eyes are forming crow's feet as the person is smiling with their mouth. This effect can be seen most easily in photographs of smiling people, as by covering the part of the face below the eyes we can usually tell if the smile is fake by simply looking for crow's feet at the outside corners of the eyes.

Whether someone's happiness manifests as exuberance, contentment, or something in-between, we should embrace the fact that each person will express their emotions in their own way, and no matter how someone shows that they are happy - be it by doing backflips or by letting out a quiet sigh - they are entitled to show their happiness any way they like.