Can you tell if those smiles are real?
A real smile involves two muscles: the zygomaticus major (pulling the lip and raising the cheeks) and the orbicularis oculi (creating the small cringes around eyes and producing crow’s feet). A fake smile is also known as a social smile or a polite smile. When we were very young, we started to learn and practice how to smile socially and friendly. We can easily raise our mouth and create a smile. However, there are some muscles that cannot be voluntarily controlled and there is a difference between a real and a fake smile. A fake smile only involves the muscles around the mouth, and little muscle contraction happens around the eyes.
Let’s take a look at some smiles from Mark Rubio at the third GOP debate.
This smile is intentionally created when he is being introduced to the audience. He lifts his mouth, raises his cheeks, and creates a smile. However, little muscle contraction is found around his eyes. So it’s not a real smile, but a fake smile.
This smile is displayed after Quintanilla asks about Rubio’s job performance and satisfaction: “So when the Sun-Sentinel says Rubio should resign, not rip us off, when they say Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job, when they say you act like you hate your job, do you? “
From the question, you can easily tell that it is impossible for Rubio to feel happy and generate a real smile under this circumstance. His body language is vividly telling the real emotion he is having here is anger. The smile is exactly the same as the one he creates when he is introduced to the audience. It’s a polite gesture he learned and practiced. It’s not a real smile. His breaths become shorter, faster, and deeper with chests heaving and shoulders moving, indicating his stress and anger. He tilts his head sideways showing his disagreement and his emotion change. Moreover, his right hand produces a claw shape, showing he is offended and angry. So the function of the fake smile here is to cover up his real emotion which is anger and show his polite.
This smile happens when Rubio talks about his new book:” It's available on paperback, if you're interested in buying my book.” This smile has a significant difference from the two examples showed above: the wrinkles around eyes – the crow’s feet. Those wrinkles are created from the contraction of orbicularis oculi, and this is a muscle that people cannot voluntarily control. The crow’s feet only appears in real smiles.