Melania Trump and the importance of micro expressions
Facial gestures is the main way to express and recognize people emotional state.
The human face has 43 muscles, which allow us to perform a huge variety of expressions. The muscles of the face, most of the time, are controlled consciously, so it allows us to control an unlimited quantity of gestures, being a great help to show the world our mood. This facial control also lets the human being to fake his emotional state, that means, there is a possibility to express an emotional state that we do not feel, or to hide our authentic emotion and change it for another expression.
With different skill levels we are all able to control our emotional expression, however there are people who need to develop this ability in a more precise way. On those persons who are public figures or who work in continue contact with other people, the ability to show an emotion according to what the situation is requiring, it supposes a great advantage to develop your work. Everybody knows that if two nearby bars which serves the same beer at the same price, you will go to the one that gives you the best attention.
Recently, a video of Melania Trump, wife of the newly appointed president of the United States, Donald Trump, during his inaugural meeting, has become very popular. At a given time during the meeting, the president turns around to look at his wife, who responds to him with a slight smile. However, as soon as Donald Trump turns towards the audience, the facial expression of the first lady sharply changes, showing a strong sadness emotion.
Is it possible that her emotional state changed in such a dramatic and sudden way?
To answer this question it is needed to mention Paul Ekman studies about emotional expressions. This author succeeded in demonstrating that, when an emotion is perceived it is needed to focus on micro expressions, little movements of a momentary and involuntary nature which allows to detect the truth of an emotional expression. The expression named as basic emotions (surprise, fear, disgust, ire, happiness and sadness), presents a serie of specific micro expressions which can be easily detected, moreover these expressions are universal for human being, that is, everybody regardless of the country or the culture, shows a similar expression. For detecting these micro expressions it is needed to focus on the so-called unity of action, face muscles which produce expressiveness.
Based on this, we can analyze the facial expression of Melania Trump. The happiness emotion is characterized by the uprising of the corners in the mouth and cheeks, and the presence of wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, the famous ‘crow’s feet’. If all these micro expressions are well analyzed, we are facing a genuine expression, also known as Duchenne smile. In the video it can be seen the moment when she is expressing happiness, the corners of her mouth and the cheeks raise, but the ‘crow’s feet’ do not appear. Furthermore, the length of this expression is very short, it takes only 4 seconds, and the fading is very sharp, changing to a sadness expression.
Nevertheless, despite being able to analyze the displayed emotions from the video, the images cannot explain other factors or events that could affect the feelings of the first lady, that is something that only the president and Melania can know.
