M 14/20
I figured everyone knew about the eyes thing so I wasn’t really even paying attention to that. I know I crinkle my eyes when I fake smile. In any case, for me, there was only one smile in the bunch that looked actually genuine (15).
Ha. The guy who did the study, in his seminal (I suppose) paper that I cited, referred actually to three kinds of smiles – false, felt, and miserable. The “miserable” smile looks different from the other two and is meant to convey dissatisfaction-and-unhappiness-that-won’t-rise-to-the-level-of-anger-or-tears. Apparently a useful social signal in its own right.
15/20, male.
Not bad for me since I have developed a belief that I can’t read people. Maybe I’m getting better at it.
Oooh, I think I did the worst. 10/20 - Female.
I also suck at determing when people are telling the truth and when they’re lying.
I think there’s at least one more category - unconscious smiles not associated with happiness / positive emotion. There are situations where I find myself smiling politely, even though I never had any conscious intent to smile, and during which I’m not particularly happy. It’s like a social reflex.
For example, someone tells a joke, and people chuckle and grin even though they may not find it funny at all.
Male, 17/20. All three that I missed were males–one fake that I thought was genuine and two genuine that I thought were fake.
I knew to watch the eyes. I think the fake that got me has eyes that sort of default to the crinkly-smily position, and it threw me. I’m not sure why I misjudged the two genuine ones–habitual suspicion, perhaps.
Results
You got 15 out of 20 correct
Male here and also I got all the woman correctly.
I think that’s a false smile.
Male, 16/20
I tried to see how quickly the face relaxed. My four misses were one fake and three genuine, incorrectly guessed as genuine and fake, respectively.
19 of 20 correct. I’m female - I watch the eyes.
16/20. I got every 5th smile wrong.
Male 17/20.
Lotta ugly people in my country.
16/20.
I judged by how quickly the smile disappeared from their face. I real smile lingers.
Yeah, but what if someone telling you to smile strikes you as funny?
Male, 10/20. Perfectly random. And I even know about looking at eyes. I fail at being human.
Based on the responses, I wanted to see how men did versus the women, since there is this stereotype that women are better at reading emotions than men are.
men women
median score : 15 16
mean score : 15 16
men women
How many got 10 right: 1 0
How many got 11 right: 0 2
How many got 12 right: 3 0
How many got 13 right: 4 1
How many got 14 right: 0 2
How many got 15 right: 6 2
How many got 16 right: 4 2
How many got 17 right: 6 2
How many got 18 right: 0 3
How many got 19 right: 1 2
How many got 20 right: 0 1
With the caveat that this is a small sample size, it looks like the stereotype holds, to a degree. On average, men got 15 right and women got 16 right.
What’s interesting is that, if you look at the distribution of the scores, most men’s scores were bunched around 15-17, whereas women’s scores were more evenly spread out across the entire range.
Female, 17 out of 20. I was looking at the eyes, but not quite closely enough.
Hah! Beat me to it. Wondered where they got their sample.
The two things I watch for are the eyes and how rapidly, and in what manner, the smile fades.
In reading the summary I thought it mentioned that the eye-crinkles can be faked, though.
I got fifteen out of twenty which was a better than I expected.
Female, and I surprised myself by getting 16 out of 20 correct.
Male, 15/20.
Male
14/20. missed three each of the fake/genuine.