The Definitive Book of Body Language - Barbara Pease [86]
As we said in our book Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps (Orion), men and women's brains are programmed differently to express emotions through facial expressions and body language. Typically, a woman can use an average of six main facial expressions in a ten-second listening period to reflect and then feed back the speaker's emotions. Her face will mirror the emotions being expressed by the speaker. To someone watching, it can look as if the events being discussed are happening to both women.
A woman reads the meaning of what is being said through the speaker's voice tone and his emotional condition through his body language. This is exactly what a man needs to do to capture a woman's attention and to keep her interested and listening. Most men are daunted by the prospect of using facial feedback while listening, but it pays big dividends for the man who becomes good at it.
Some men say, “She'll think I'm effeminate!” but research with these techniques shows that when a man mirrors a woman's facial expressions as she talks, she will describe him as caring, intelligent, interesting, and attractive.
Men, on the other hand, can make fewer than a third of the facial expressions a woman can make. Men usually hold expressionless faces, especially in public, because of the evolutionary need to withhold emotion to stave off possible attack from strangers and to appear to be in control of their emotions. This is why most men look as if they are statues when they listen.
The emotionless mask that men wear while listening allows them to feel in control of the situation, but does not mean men don't experience emotions. Brain scans reveal that men can feel emotion as strongly as women, but avoid showing it publicly.
What to Do About It if You're Female
The key to mirroring a man's behavior is in understanding that he doesn't use his face to signal his attitudes—he uses his body. Most women find it difficult to mirror an expressionless man, but with males this is not required. If you're a woman, it means that you need to reduce your facial expressions so that you don't come across as overwhelming or intimidating. Most important, don't mirror what you think he might be feeling. That can be disastrous if you've got it wrong and you may be described as “dizzy” or “scatterbrained.” Women in business who listen with a more serious face are described by men as more intelligent, astute, and sensible.
When Men and Women Start to Look Alike
When two people live together for a long time and have a good working relationship, they often begin to look alike. This is because they are constantly mirroring each other's facial expressions, which, over time, builds muscle definition in the same areas of the face. Even couples who don't look facially similar can appear similar in a photograph because they use the same smile.
The Beckhams don't look at all alike until they smile
Forty years of mirroring—the Beckhams at retirement with their dog Spot
In 2000, psychologist Dr. John Gottman of the University of Washington, Seattle, and his colleagues discovered that marriages are more likely to fail when one partner not only does not mirror the other's expressions of happiness, but instead shows expressions of contempt. Instead, this opposite behavior affects the smiling partner, even when they are not consciously aware of what is happening.
Do We Resemble Our Pets?
You can also see mirroring occur in the pets some people choose. Without realizing it, we unconsciously tend to favor pets that physically resemble us, or that appear to reflect our attitudes.
To demonstrate the point, here are a few examples:
Do we choose pets that resemble us?
Monkey See, Monkey Do
The next time you attend a social function or go to a place where people meet and interact, notice the number of people who have taken the