Social Engineering - Christopher Hadnagy [65]
Dr. Paul Ekman
Figure 5-1: Notice the glare, tense lips and tightened brows.
Learning to see a specific microexpression can greatly enhance your understanding of people. To learn how to do so, Dr. Ekman recommends practicing that expression on yourself. He says follow these steps:
1. Pull your eyebrows down and together; pretend you are trying to touch your nose with the inner parts of your eyebrows.
2. While your brows are down, try to open your eyes wide, without adjusting your brow position.
3. Press your lips together tight. Do not pucker your lips, just tense them together.
4. Glare.
What emotion do you feel? The first time I did this, I was overwhelmed with anger. The following is a vital point to this chapter:
If producing the facial expression can cause the emotion, that must mean that our facial movements can affect the emotions we feel, and maybe even the emotions of those around us.
Practice this emotion in a mirror until you get it right. Figure 5-2 shows a picture of Simon Cowell wearing a very definite angry expression.
Figure 5-2: Notice the definite expression of anger on Simon’s face.
It may not be as pronounced as Figure 5-1, but you can see all the signs on his face of being angry.
Mastering the ability to reproduce microexpressions will go a long a way toward understanding the emotion behind them. When you can successfully reproduce and decode a microexpression, you can understand the emotion that is causing it. At that point you can understand the mental state of the person you are dealing with. Not only reproducing them on yourself but also being able to see and read them in others can be helpful in controlling the outcome of your social engineering engagements.
Disgust
Disgust is a strong emotion usually in reaction to something you really do not like. This “something” does not always have to be a physical object; it can also be something that is based on a belief or feeling.
A food that you truly hate can cause the feeling of disgust, which will trigger this expression. What is amazing is even in the absence of the actual smell or sight of the food, the thought of it can cause the same emotion.
When I was a teenager, I went to Disney World with a few friends. I am not, and I mean not, a fan of roller coasters. After much prodding I went on Space Mountain, an indoor roller coaster. About halfway through I had determined that I really didn’t mind roller coasters when suddenly I was smeared with something very wet and chunky. I was then hit with an odor that I can only describe as stomach contents. Not only me, but many behind me had the same reaction and none of us could hold back our lunch, so to speak. Before you knew it, a simultaneous puking splattered the glass of the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, a slow-moving observation ride that offers a peek into the actual Space Mountain ride on part of its journey. What is amazing is that people in the Tomorrowland ride who sat there slowly going around the park saw the aftereffects hit the glass as they rode through, and saw all the other riders getting physically ill, which made them also vomit—yet they didn’t smell the odor or have physical contact with the puke from the roller coaster riders. Why?
Disgust. Bodily fluids generally bring on feelings of disgust and this is one reason that while reading this paragraph you probably started to exhibit the expressions of disgust.
Disgust is often characterized by the upper lip being raised to expose the teeth, and a wrinkling of the nose. It may also result in both cheeks being raised when the nose is wrinkled up, as if to try to block the passage of the bad smell or thought into one’s personal space.
I was reading an article on the winter Olympics when I saw this picture of Ekaterina Ilyukhina (see Figure 5-3) showing very clear traits of disgust. Notice the raised upper lip and the wrinkled nose. Is she