How to Read Facial Expressions, and Why We Get Them Wrong

You’ve carefully prepared for a presentation at work, and now you’re delivering your wisdom to a packed room. As you expected, your colleagues seem impressed and fascinated, except for one guy in the front row. He looks confused. Mid-sentence, you try to give him a megawatt smile, but he just seems more perplexed, maybe even a little angry. Your voice wavers.

Yes, the guy in the front row may hate you. More likely, though, you’ve just encountered what some psychologists and body language experts call RBF, or “resting disturbed face.” (A bolder term is used in Internet meme language.) This is a facial expression that the owner considers neutral, while others consider it irritated or disapproving.

Misreading facial expressions is not trivial. This is part of a deeper problem: Increasingly, people feel misunderstood. They have a harder time communicating authentically, leading to isolation and alienation that can harm their mental and physical health.

But learning to read other people’s facial expressions better can help improve your communication and relationships.

Why people misjudge facial expressions

Poor reading of facial expressions can stem from unrealistic expectations we have of others, as well as differences in how individuals and cultures outwardly express themselves and interpret facial signals.

Humans are by nature very good at noticing changes in other people’s expressions. “We can identify every minute of movement,” says Aleix Martinez, an entrepreneur and former professor of cognitive science at Ohio State University who worked as a senior scientist at Amazon.

However, we are less adept at grasping the meaning of these changes. “We often fail to identify the affect or emotion being communicated,” says Martinez.

If only humans kept their expressions to cartoonishly light frowns and smiles. In reality, dozens of expressions blend emotions in unique ways. And these subtleties, called micro- or meso-expressions, vary from culture to culture, as well as among individuals within each culture.

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With all these nuances, it’s risky to assume you know someone’s feelings based on fleeting glances. “Most of the time we just make the best guess possible,” says Marc Brackett, founding director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence at Yale and author of two books on the subject, Permission to feel And Dealing with feelings.

These gaps could widen in the Internet age, especially as the identities we portray on social media diverge from our true selves, says Vanessa Van Edwards, a science communicator who wrote the book Captivate: the science of success with people. If people see you on digital laughing while doing cartwheels on the beach with a crowd of best friends, they assume you’re an extrovert, even if you’re an introvert who will never cartwheel in public again.

When meeting in person, they might perceive your neutral face as awkward and resting, compared to your internet personality. “It makes it even more difficult to interact in person,” says Van Edwards. “You have so many other misinterpretations.”

While teaching a course on social interaction at Harvard University in 2025, Van Edwards surveyed his students about why they feel misunderstood. They shared various reasons, but no one disputed the assumption behind the question. Everyone felt misunderstood.

And when we lack strong social connections, it can harm well-being, heart health and longevity.

Add missing context

Part of the problem is how few people get to know each other beyond superficialities, even when they interact frequently. As a result, we lack a critical context that would explain these seemingly out-of-nowhere brow arches and nose wrinkles. “If you don’t have quality relationships, you don’t know that person’s basic expressions,” Brackett says.

Work is a great example of this. “At work, your employer may misinterpret your expression because they have no idea who you are,” says Martinez. “It doesn’t matter how many years you worked there. They don’t have the details of your life.”

Van Edwards was recently excited to interview a candidate for a job, but was met with the person’s embarrassed, rested face throughout the conversation. A follow-up interview went better, and Van Edwards learned that the candidate was grimacing from wearing borrowed shoes that were too tight.

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More enduring elements of context are life history and personality. Researchers have found that adults who experienced childhood abuse detect negative emotions more quickly than those who did not experience such trauma. Additionally, people who are prone to anger or more likely to interpret neutral facial expressions as negative, and those who experience more stress and negative emotions have greater sensitivity to negative faces.

Knowing such background can help make facial reading more accurate. After his partner of 30 years speaks on the phone with his mother, Brackett knows the subject of their conversation just by looking at his face. “The closer your relationship, the better you read real emotions,” he says.

But people have a hard time finding the time, let alone 30 years, to scratch those interpersonal surfaces, Brackett says. It may seem awkward to ask how an acquaintance is feeling; It’s emotionally safer to ignore their embarrassed resting face, Brackett says.

This is reflected in our expressions, our non-verbal behavior and our words. “People want to interact with others who are nonjudgmental, good listeners, and compassionate, including warm facial expressions,” Brackett notes. Yet he found that these types of supportive relationships are often lacking; for example, only about half of us have them with work colleagues.

How to express yourself better

At this point, you may be thinking about what exactly your facial expressions communicate to the world. Experts recommend several steps for self-discovery and improvement.

A rather uncomfortable option is to “self-assess,” as Van Edwards puts it, by watching a video of yourself. Record a real video call with other people, then monitor your expressions. What messages are sent by your face?

Another self-audit strategy is to ask others for feedback. “It’s very difficult for some people because it feels like an attack on their character,” Brackett says. “Others adopt ‘learner mode’ because they truly want to present themselves to others in the most useful way.”

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If you find that your face is self-conscious at rest, Van Edwards thinks you don’t necessarily need to try to banish it, especially if the expression helps you focus and process information. Just be aware so you can clarify it verbally, she suggests. When you grimace while thinking deeply, you can say to the other person, “Let me process this for a second.” They will know how to ignore what might otherwise be perceived as anger.

To further soften a resting awkward face, use positive body language such as good eye contact (which research shows can lead to a positive reaction) and nodding. Tilting your head toward another person indicates attention and eagerness.

Van Edwards has worked with leaders who wear cold, intimidating expressions but wonder why their employees avoid them. “You can balance these signals with warmth,” she says.

Above all, use these adjustments to better express how you really feel. “The falsification backfires,” Van Edwards says. “You have to be authentic.”

Decoding other people’s facial expressions

The problem of misreading facial expressions is a two-way street; it is both a question of expression and observation. Certain skills can be developed to more accurately understand the real meaning of facial signals.

We can know subtle expressions better. For example, look for lower eyelid flexing to distinguish whether a person (like a guy in the front row) is irritated or just focused on what you’re saying, says Van Edwards. When people concentrate, they harden their lower eyelid; the area under the eyes seems to firm up. If someone is really irritated, you’re unlikely to see it.

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Generally, you want to focus on the other person’s eyes. In addition to creating mutual feelings of connection, making eye contact can improve your “decoding ability,” says Van Edwards. We tend to watch the lips for certain emotions like joy, but the mouth can be deceptive. (People often misinterpret a dismissive look as a half-smile, for example.) Research shows that eye contact is essential for satisfying social interactions and activates the social parts of the brain.

This may seem obvious, but the best way to practice reading with other people is to gain more in-person experience with other human beings. Martinez says he learned to read other people’s faces at Amazon while spending most of his days interacting with employees. “These are skills that need to be developed,” he says.

And give people the benefit of the doubt. If you think you see an embarrassed face at rest, keep looking to get more data about the face, Martinez says. Small samples of expressions won’t reveal much about the feelings of others. “It’s a dynamic system,” says Martinez, with constant corrections for early misinterpretations. “We understand expressions better with more information.”