A Primer on Deciphering Concealed Emotions

Introduction: Deciphering the Emotional Enigma

How do you truly discern someone's emotional state, especially when their words convey one thing and your intuition suggests another? What if they're adept at masking their true feelings towards you, a particular subject, or a situation? Can a fleeting look, an almost imperceptible twitch of the lip, or a brief flash of the eyes reveal what's genuinely lurking beneath the surface? The quest to understand the emotional undercurrents of human interaction leads us to the fascinating world of micro expressions—brief, involuntary facial expressions that convey the true emotions people are trying to hide.

Social engineering does not simply apply to penetration testers, it is arguably one of the most important skills of any human who deals with other people can possess. Being able to read someone, talk to them, get truthful information out of them are so important that I often say that it is either a person’s biggest strength, or greatest weakness, in everything from job opportunities, relationships … everything.

But human’s are very private creatures, we often don’t want people to know how we really feel, especially if we do not know and trust that person and even then we may hide our feelings on a subject if we think the other person doesn’t hold the same opinion.

This blog post isn’t about eliciting information out of a person, instead it is about how to detect the emotional state and true opinions a person holds with a little setup and a quick glance.

Understanding Baselines

To accurately interpret a person, one must first become adept at reading a person's baseline state. This baseline serves as the standard measure of an individual's typical emotional expressions, visual appearance and behaviors when they are under no stress or in a neutral state.

Identifying this baseline involves keen observation over a period of time, though often you will only have a moment, noting how their face looks when they're relaxed, how they gesture when they're engaged in casual conversation, and what their posture suggests about their comfort level. Baselines are far more than simply a facial tick, tapping their shoe on the floor or having a frown on their face, it also carries over into things like their overall appearance. How are they dressed, is their makeup sloppy, is their hair a mess, are they well put together … all of these things tell a story about both the person and their current mind frame.

If you start talking to a man with a 5 day beard, heavy bags under his eyes and unkempt hair, than if during your conversation he seems to drift off or even nod off, it may have nothing to do with you or the topic but simply that the man is stressed, tired or mentally preoccupied.

Understanding a person’s baseline will help you to prepare for a conversation, what to expect and how to adjust your behavior and approach, but also your expectations on what a person’s body is telling you.

The tired looking man above, who happens to repeatably yawn during your conversation, may not be disinterested in your conversation, he may simply be exhausted, but if you don’t establish this baseline, you may either be offended or come to the wrong conclusions.

Introduction to Micro Expressions

Human’s are rather private creatures, we don’t like to let other people know how we really feel about a subject due to embarrassment, political correctness, not wanting to offend someone, etc. So we often try to hide our true feelings and remain stoic, but every once in a while a little sign of emotion will leak out. Someone tells a funny joke, says something you find offensive, etc and that stoic mask cracks just a bit, for a just a moment … these are micro expressions.

Micro expressions are the fleeting, involuntary facial expressions that occur in response to an emotion, lasting only a fraction of a second. Unlike regular, voluntary facial expressions, micro expressions are difficult to control because they happen without the individual's conscious effort. They can express a range of emotions, from joy, surprise, fear, disgust, contempt, anger, to sadness, and provide a peek into someone's true feelings despite their attempts to conceal them.

Paul Ekman, a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions, identified these micro expressions as universal signals of emotion that are consistent across cultures. The ability to detect and interpret these expressions can be a powerful tool in understanding unspoken emotional responses in real-time, whether in negotiations, security, personal relationships, or therapeutic settings.

Watch this clip of Mark Zuckerburg being asked questions before congress and see if you can spot the micro expression

The best part of micro expressions, is that because a person is trying to hide their real feelings when the micro expression leaks out, this often relays the person’s true feelings about a topic, and if you watch carefully you’ll catch them.