Face easily plays the biggest role in human non-verbal communication.
People bite their lower lips for different reasons. To be clear, this article isn’t about the physical or medical reasons for chronic lip biting. It strictly focuses on the psychological reasons behind lip biting. Specifically, we’ll look at ‘biting your bottom lip’ from the body language perspective. Before you attempt to interpret any body language …
To furrow one’s eyebrows means to wrinkle them. Someone with furrowed eyebrows has visible lines on their forehead. The furrowing of eyebrows occurs when eyebrows are lowered, brought together, or raised. When eyebrows are in the neutral position, they don’t cause lines on the forehead. Eyebrow movement in humans is a robust social signaling system. …
People blink excessively for a variety of reasons. The biological function of blinking is to lubricate the eyeballs to keep them moist. When our eyes become dry due to irritation, eyestrain, or contact lenses, we blink more. In addition, excessive blinking is caused by some medical conditions and treatments such as: Excessive blinking also has …
When someone gives you a sideways glance, they look at you from the corners of their eyes. Normally, when we have to look at someone, we turn our heads towards them. If we’re really interested in engaging with them, we also turn our bodies towards them. These are direct modes of engagement with the other …
In body language, the ‘tongue pressed against cheek’ facial expression occurs when a person’s tongue presses against the inside of their cheek on one side of the face. As a result, their cheek bulges noticeably on the outside. This facial expression is subtle and usually lasts for only a fraction of a second. Where and …
Pinching the bridge of the nose gesture consists of pinching the top of the nose with one’s index finger and thumb. It’s often accompanied by a lowering of the head, closing the eyes, and releasing a deep sigh. Sometimes, the person may also squeeze the skin in the area repeatedly. Pinching the bridge of the …
In body language, the rule of thumb is that our body turns to where we want to go and what we want to engage with. The same applies to the eyes, which are a body part, after all. Generally, we turn our eyes to where our body wants to go and what our minds want …
A mixed facial expression is the one that someone makes when they’re experiencing two or more emotions at the same time. A masked facial expression results from suppression, conscious or unconscious, of an emotion. Masked facial expressions usually manifest as weak expressions of the emotion but sometimes we also use opposite facial expressions for masking. For …
When you’re angry, how do you express disapproval or threaten the person who caused your anger using your mouth? That’s easy; you press your lips together strongly in an attempt to show determination- a determination to take action against the person. But what happens when you are extremely angry, the I’m-going-to-eat-you-alive type of angry? When you’re …
When we greet others from a distance, we give them a slight head nod or we raise our eyebrows very briefly, the latter resulting in an expression known as the ‘eyebrow flash’. In an ‘eyebrow flash’, the eyebrows rise rapidly for a split second and then drop again. The purpose of the ‘eyebrow flash’ is to draw …