Recent research has uncovered the cause of the Resting Seriousface and it’s not pretty.
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Be warned: Your smile is public property
The resting serious face, otherwise known as the Resting Bitchy Face (RBF) for the serious faced women and Resting Asshole Face (RAF) is for the dour men out there.
A recent research project was completed by scientists at the Noldus Information Technology firm using a facial recognition program that has a database of over 10,000 faces. The computer analyzes 500 points on the human face and assigns an emotional tag to each face: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt, and “neutral.”
Researchers inputted pictures of RBF/RAF elite that include Kanye West, Kristen Stewart and Queen Elizabeth. The computer found that a serious disposition is primarily caused by the emotion of contempt.
It’s in the subtle signals, like “one side of the lip pulled back slightly, the eyes squinting a little.” Contempt is not a compliment: it’s a serious emotion, defined as disdain, disregard or even scorn.
Body language is all about the subtleties. The computer analyzes the face and can detect the slightest facial responses. A neutral face actually 97% neutral and 3% emotion. When someone with a resting seriousface has their expression analyzed, the emotional level doubles to 6%, mainly due to what the computer defines as contempt.
The Noldus facial recognition software accurately reads expressions 85-88% of the time, which is the same as most humans. So go ahead and frown because judgment has just been outsourced.
We trust the smiley faces
It’s time to own up to it: our society judges serious women. Looking at famous, successful, attractive women and imagining them to be contemptuous feeds something dark in the hearts of some people.
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Humans and supersmart computers get facial expressions wrong 15% of the time. How can we conclude what is inside of a person based on being pretty close?
Facial expressions are misinterpreted all of the time by humans and machines. Something as ‘universal’ as a smile can reflect true happiness and joy, but it can also be caused by embarrassment, deceit, grief, feeling frightened, flirting, being horrified, lying and even feeling sad. When we let computers think for us, we forget that there is more to a face than a smile.
To be honest, I am not a fan of Kanye West. His RAF is priceless and I happen to agree with the computer that he is contemptuous. It’s fun to imagine him sitting in one of his million dollar homes, thinking about how great he is and how much the world needs him. Truth is, I don’t know the guy and I can’t begin to understand who he really is on the inside.
Psychologists call this facial bias: we judge others solely based on their facial expressions.
A Psychology Today article discussed face-ism, citing Dr. Christopher Olivola, professor at Carnegie Mellon Univeristy. Olivola studies decision making and facial bias.
Judging by the Facial Expressions
The Noldus facial recognition software accurately reads expressions 85-88% of the time, which is the same as most humans. So go ahead and frown because judgment has just been outsourced.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but you and I are judging all of the time. And we make significant judgments solely based on tiny facial cues. In a previous article on the phenomenon of the Resting Asshole Face, I found very few men who admitted to being an RAF. Entire communities, however, exist for the Resting Bitchy Face women.
Do you get the discrepancy? A serious faced woman is assumed to be a bitch, and will be pressured to smile and look happy. It’s time to own up to it: our society judges serious women. Looking at famous, successful, attractive women and imagining them to be contemptuous feeds something dark in the hearts of some people.
The judgment comes from a pervasive social pressure on women to appear submissive. A woman who displays a pleasant smiling face conveys submissiveness. Whereas a more serious and confident woman will be asked to smile and may even be shamed for her seriousface (aka Resting Bitchface). Ironically, a serious man will not be expected to smile, because his seriousness is (wait for it) attractive.
Smile Porn
Pressuring women to smile, calling them bitches if they are confident or proud is nothing more than social shaming and an attempt to manipulate their behavior.
A serious faced man or woman is just that: serious on the outside and free to be who they are. Why does it need to be more than that? As if a label can define a person and their entire experience.
Some people think that Kanye West is arrogant and full of himself. But to his fans, they think he is talented and confident. Who is right? Only Kanye knows.
Without knowing it, we are engaging in what I call Smile Porn: The preference for happy, smiling people; pressuring others to act happy; idolizing the smiling and successful people in our society while isolating and judging the serious. At its heart, Smile Porn is a refusal to accept others for who they are as opposed to who we want them to be.
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If you are serious faced, The Good Men Project is your tribe. We want you. We are having the conversation that no one else is having. Join us, and join me in the comments.
Keep it Real
Photos credit to Flikr/Alan Turkus, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and David Shankbone
Kira,
Rocking is what we do. Seriousface smile back at you.
You guys rock! Thanks for the female-empowering sentiments. Much appreciated. You get a genuine smile.
Sean. Trying again. Then teach your daughter to think, if not say, “eff you, creep” is some clown tells her to smile.
Don’t teach her to roll up an a puddle of angst.
Richard, Good advice!
Richard, I agree that it is a good thing to teach a victim empowering responses, but it is far more important and a responsibility to teach the aggressor that their behavior is wrong. We do not teach mugging victims how to appropriately respond to the mugger, and likewise, it is time to stop teaching rape victims that it is their responsibility to stop attract the wrong attention, and time to stop teaching women that they are responsible for stopping aggressors by acting “appropriately”. Men need to stand up and take responsibility for their actions, to stop condoning the minimization and… Read more »
Dan, Well said.
Hardly anybody tells me to “smile”. Obvious reasons, I suppose. As to women smiling: We’re taught to be polite in social settings, even to perfect strangers. If it’s a pro-forma smile…it’s a pro-forma smile. Not giving a pro-forma smile means you’re not in accord with social norms. While polite people probably don’t say anything, it would be strange to think they don’t notice. Or shouldn’t. If you choose to ignore social norms, be prepared to be judged as…ignoring social norms. Among other things, this is more work than automatically going along with the norms, which is likely to make people… Read more »
Richard, I agree that social norms do provide a guide for behavior. But clearly there is a bias on gender lines. How is this different than believing that a social norm is that a woman should be paid less than a man? Smiling is not nearly as serious an issue as pay or professional respect, but the shaming that underlies it can reinforce a norm that a woman is subservient. That is my point. When I was a youth, I was serious faced and I occasionally was told to smile. It’s just how my face went. I felt awkward and… Read more »
“inputted”?
Okay. I don’t have resting bitchy face. Whatever I have causes women to pull their children closer.
And when somebody has a camera, I generally have to tell them, “I AM smiling, take the stupid picture. I’m feeling like the star of Jaws here.”
Richard, I prefer your definition, the “Pull your children closer face” to mine. A smile is in the beholder. Good point.
Finally someone says something about this. It’s so frustrating to be expected to smile all the time, as if us women didn’t have the right to be anything but a prancing unicorn that shits rainbows and farts bubbles. In my particular case, people have always asked me if something’s wrong or if I’m upset just because of the look in my face. Truth is, I’m either having a great conversation with myself in my mind, thinking about the mysteries of life, or wondering what I’m going to eat later. I love being feminine. I love flirting and I love interesting… Read more »
Giselle,
Great comment. I especially love your quote about the prancing unicorn.
You are so right that people often guess wrong about a person’s intentions. A serious face is just that, another face. Beautiful, mysterious and brooding, but unique.
Have a great one, and go ahead, be seriousfaced.
Keep it Real.