Five Common Types of Smiles
What follows is a summary and an analysis of the common types of smiles that you're likely to see every day:
1.The Tight-Lipped Smile The lips are stretched tight across the face to form a straight line and the teeth are concealed. It sends the message that the smiler has a secret or a withheld opinion or attitude that they will not be sharing with you. It's a favourite of women who don't want to reveal that they don't like someone and is usually clearly read by other women as a rejection signal. Most men are oblivious to it.
The Tight-Lipped Smile shows she has a secret and won't be sharing it with you
for example, one woman might say of another woman, 'She's a very capable woman who knows what she wants', followed by a tight-lipped smile, rather than saying what she was really
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thinking: 'I think she's an aggressive, pushy bitch!' The TightLipped Smile is also seen in magazine pictures of successful businessmen who are communicating 'I've got the secrets of success and you've got to try and guess what they are.' In these interviews, the men have a tendency to talk about principles of success but rarely do they reveal the exact details of how they succeeded. Conversely, Richard Branson is always seen sporting a wide toothy smile and is happy to explain the exact details of his success because he knows that most people won't do it anyway.
Tony and Cherie Blair were 'tight lipped' about Cherie's last pregnancy
2.The Twisted Smile This smile shows opposite emotions on each side of the face. In picture A below, the right brain raises the left side eyebrow, the left zygomatic muscles and left cheek to produce one type of smile on the left side of the face while the left brain pulls the same muscles downwards on the right side to produce an angry frown. When you place a mirror down the middle of illustration A, at an angle of 90 degrees to reflect each side of the face, you produce two completely different faces with opposite emotions. Mirroring the right side of the face reveals picture B, which has a cheesy grin, while mirroring the left side (picture C) reveals an angry frown.
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The Twisted Smile is peculiar to the Western world and can only be done deliberately which means it can send only one message - sarcasm.
3. The Drop-Jaw Smile This is a practised smile where the lower jaw is simply dropped down to give the impression that the person is laughing or playful. This is a favourite of people such as The Joker in Batman, Bill Clinton and Hugh Grant, all of whom use it to engender happy reactions in their audiences or to win more votes.
Drop-Jaw smile with an attempt to fake smiling eyes
A B C
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A Drop-Jaw smile where only the jaw is lowered to feign enjoyment
4. Sideways-Looking-Up Smile With the head turned down and away while looking up with a Tight-Lipped Smile, the smiler looks juvenile, playful and secretive. This coy smile has been shown to be men's favourite everywhere, because when a woman does it, it engenders parental male feelings, making men want to protect and care for females. This is one of the smiles Princess Diana used to captivate the hearts of people everywhere.
Diana's Sideways-Looking-Up smile had a powerful effect on both men and women
The Magic of Smiles and Laughter
This smile made men want to protect her, and made women want to be like her. Not surprisingly, this smile is a regular in men's courtship repertoire for attracting men as it's read by as seductive and is a powerful 'come-on' signal. This is the same smile now used by Prince William, which not only has the effect of winning people's affection, it also reminds them of Diana.
5.The George W Bush Grin President George W Bush always has a permanent smirk on his face. Ray Birdwhistell found that smiling among middle-class people is most common in Atlanta, Louisville, Memphis, Nashville and most of Texas. Bush is a Texan and they smile more than most other Americans. As a result, in Texas, an unsmiling individual might be asked if he was 'angry about something', while in New York, the smiler might be asked, 'What's so funny?' President Jimmy Carter was also a Southerner who smiled all the time. This worried the Northerners who feared that he knew something they didn't.
Smile constantly. Everyone will wonder what you've been up to.
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