1. Your face can make over 10,000 different expressions and over 50 different kinds of smiles and RBF is actually a smile of contempt.
2. Contempt is a feeling that a person or thing is beneath consideration, worthless and deserving of scorn. When someone feels contempt, they often feel superior to
others, though interestingly people in subordinate power positions can feel contempt for their superiors. Contempt is a sign of annoyance and sometimes a sign of anger and you can see therefor why seeing someone showing is disturbing.
3. What you are seeing is one side of the lip pulled back slightly or a very slight raising of the just the outside corners of the mouth and freezing in place (may appear as a slight sneer) and the eyes squinting slightly or a tightening around the eye and sometimes the addition of the “lines of focus” above the bridge of the nose wrinkling. It there is the one side up a form of RBF it indicates that the limbic system is showing the true emotion of contempt while the neocortex is
trying to suppress it and the lack of symmetry of the mouth is seen by others not just as unattractive but that there is something wrong that is being hidden and it alerts the viewer's central nervous system to be on guard and creates a
stress response.
4. The broader category of “Resting face” is the typically neutral expressions a face shows when you are not actively showing emotion but because of your facial expression
actually do move muscles in your face whatever emotions you show the most may form expressions that someone feels often. Interestingly it can be the emotion that a person believes they are actually SUPPRESSING!” So people with RBF may insist that at that moment when they are showing RBF that they are NOT “angry” or feeling negative about a person or topic what is showing on their face is the thousands of times they have felt contempt/anger/negatively.
Whatever expression your face shows even if it's just a hint of expression that expression sends the message to your brain to feel the matching emotion and
create the matching chemicals to RBF sends “prescription” to the brain to feel contempt/anger/disproval. Think of it as, like the lingering effects of a lot of alcohol in your body, you will feel it even if you haven’t had a drink in hours.
5. Though RBF is not gender-specific people often think of it as being a female expression and judges harshly in women. Research shows men give RBF just as much as women, but the expression is perceived as making the men seem more
powerful.
6. There are gender differences in how RBF is perceived that are complex. Smiling differs in males and females with boys reducing big teeth showing smiles about the age of
five and girls starting to smile more than the body in mixed-gender groupings starting in about fourth grade. Women smile more often socially to be liked and to increase the community. High-Status people smile less. Men who smile less have been shown to have more testosterone. Research shows that men are most sexually attracted to women who looked happy and are more uncomfortable around
women who aren’t smiling. The United States, there is a greater sex difference among Caucasians in smiling, but this difference virtually disappears among African Americans. Men are often uncomfortable when a woman who typically
smiles in not smiling. (I believe men who say, "why aren't you smiling?" are concerned that a non-smiling woman may be angry or trying to assert power if she is not smiling.
7. If you have RBF and want to get rid of it there are things you can do it.
Get Botox in the little V frown lines above your nose. Those lines just make you look angry
they create that “prescription” for the anger that I mentioned in 4. If you have that one lip that is asymmetrical you can get Botox to correct it as well. There are some subtle makeup tricks to help as well look for video tutorials on those.
Do resting face check-ins throughout the day and self-correct. Look in the mirror in the morning and throughout the day and check on the cues that show RBF and change
your expression to be at what you feel comfortable showing. You don’t have to smile if you don’t want to. Also do check in on how you are feeling as you go into important interactions and see if you can change your mood to what is optimal for the interaction. Do you want to feel confident, recall a situation in your life when you feel exhilarated and filled with confidence and as you recall it your brain will reproduce the matching chemicals? The same goes for happiness or other emotions. Research also shows that listening to music or
singing or even imagining your self-hearing or singing a song that contains the emotion you want to feel, or show can create it so you RBF disappears. But, remember you typically have it, because you have felt it a lot so it's not going
to disappear forever with one round of singing out Walking on Sunshine or Pharrell Williams Happy.
8. If you see someone showing RBF remember (especially guys) that being told to smile is supremely annoying. It’s condescending, for one. And it can make the non-smiler
angry because at some level it’s a request that they diminish their power.
Patti Wood,
a body language expert and author of Snap: Making the Most of First
Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma and has conducted research on smiling
in the US and Canada.
