--Original published at Olivia's College Blog

              Our interactions and relationships with others are largely influenced by how we interpret their emotional expressions. Non-verbal communication is a huge part of connecting with others by picking up visual cues that are indicative of mood or emotion. I could parallel the importance of reading facial expressions to body language. In my social psychology class, I learned that body posture and facial expressions give us a lot of hints to how an individual is feeling. For example, crossed arms or an outward leaning posture may mean that someone is uncomfortable, and they separate them self by creating distance. Someone with averted eyes with their head tilted downward may be feeling shame. These are both examples of how picking up small non-verbal cues can be very useful in communication.  

Before taking the Emotional Intelligence test, I hoped to correctly match most of the expressions with their respective emotions. I scored 15/20 and hard expected to do well. I am a very compassionate person and find it gratifying to help people through problems and give advice, so understanding these social cues is necessary. Additionally, my career aspirations as a clinical psychologist revolve around non-verbal communication. I think the test is a valuable tool; it would help me be more effective in reading emotions. I believe people should be concerned about their ability to discern emotional expressions, as it facilitates healthy communication. I can vouch for this in an example we all can relate to. Texting has a reputation for producing miscommunication. I believe the source of this miscommunication comes from the lack of face-to-face contact. The crucial difference is that text messages don’t supply us with the necessary non-verbal cues to help us read emotions.

The emotions that were the most difficult to tell apart were fear and embarrassment. I incorrectly guessed embarrassment when it was fear. I misinterpreted her appearance of an open mouth and pulled-up eyebrows as fear. The test is fairly credible in that it gives a general score of how accurate I was in discerning the 20 facial expressions. I don’t think any one quiz is enough of an indicator to tell you concretely how well you read emotions. Other variables must be taken into account, like the atmosphere and overall tone of the conversation, which are absent from the quiz.

--Original published at Ariana's Blog

The score of my facial recognition test was a 13/20. I think this is pretty accurate for me. I believe I am better at reading body language then reading faces. Sometimes someone’s face doesn’t reflect how they are feeling but their body language may. I can also tell how a person is feeling by their tone or actions. If I think something is wrong with a friend or family member, I usually ask “What’s wrong?” which is the easiest way to figure out how they are feeling. I think these ways are better than reading facial expressions because some people put on a happy face when they are not. I can use this information in my daily life to determine how a friend is feeling and try to be there for them if they are sad or upset etc. 

 It was easiest to tell anger and happiness apart since the faces are so different. It was a lot harder to determine whether it was love or happiness for example. They were both just smiling so it was hard to distinguish which it was. I thought the quiz was pretty credible except that some of the faces were too dramatic and some were unrealistic. Most people don’t make those type of facial expressions. Usually when someone is sad they won’t make a pouty face, they may just simply be quieter and not smile as often as they normally do. I also believe that some of the expressions have the same faces such as shame and embarrassment or love and flirtatious. These are all very similar and it was difficult to distinguish between them. 

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

I chose to take the quiz to see how well I could read facial expressions. I clearly cannot as I received a score of 10/20. I often found myself looking at the photo and saying “that is none of the ones here” and played the close your eyes and guess game.

I don’t find the quiz to be very creditable. It was on some website that an ad to subscribe kept popping up, which led me to think they want more people to be tricked into subscribing because they believed the computer diagnosed them with being able to read someone based off 20 pictures. I did find the quiz to be interesting as it explained the answers and why they were correct, and I found some of the reasonings to be surprising.

I could obviously pick out the easy ones like happiness, sad, or anger. One I struggled with was love for instance. Everyone expresses love differently, and before the quiz I didn’t think there were certain facial expressions that showed love, but apparently there are. One that also stumped me was a person who was staring straight and sticking her tongue out. I remember looking at the choices and questioning why something like “being silly” wasn’t on there.

I could use this for my life as it helped me think about how everyone expresses things different, and you can’t assume someone is feeling a certain way based off a face they made one time.

--Original published at NataliesCollegeBlog

Before taking this test, I thought that I was someone that was very good at reading other people’s emotions. I felt that I was someone that could pick up on how someone was feeling and felt confident in this ability. After taking this quiz I realized how I might not be as good as I thought. I received a 14/20 on the test and struggled with understanding distinctions between certain faces. A lot of the expressions that demonstrated sadness were the ones I got wrong and these are the ones I felt like I could read on people the most. It was shocking for me to realize I did not know the difference between sadness and being embarrassed either. The easiest emotion that I was able to read was emotions that showed happiness and excitement. The hardest emotion to pick up on were the emotions that demonstrated sad or angry people. This makes sense after understanding how hard it is sometimes to notice when other people are upset when you are feeling happy.

After taking the quiz I feel like the test is credible in the simpler emotions such as being happy or sad; however, some of the emotions such as embarrassment, love, and shyness all have many different facial expressions rather than one specific face, like how the quiz showed. Now that I have a better understanding of what emotions I lack at noticing, I plan to use this information to acknowledge how people are feeling more than usual. Some people are also good at hiding emotions by covering them up with other emotions too. For example, there are some people that will laugh and act like everything is normal after something embarrassing happens. This can make picking up on how someone feels to be confusing too. So if I can not pick up on how someone is feeling, I feel like it would not hurt to pull that person aside and make sure they are okay by just asking them too.

--Original published at Victoria's Psych Blog

I took the online test and I was shocked by my results. Before the test, I thought I was decent at telling how people are feeling nonverbally. During the test, looking at the pictures, I had a really hard time knowing what the emotions are. I only got a 9/20 on the test. It said at the end that I scored below average and I should keep practicing. At first, I was a little hurt because I thought I was pretty good at reading people’s facial expressions. After a few minutes, I was thinking about the circumstances of the test. I think I am good at reading people’s emotions when I see them on a regular basis. If it is someone I interact with on a daily basis, I will have an easier time reading their facial expressions. I also think that the test is not hundred percent credible because the pictures were forced and posed. There is no way that high quality pictures taken for every single emotion that weren’t forced. But the test is still kind of credible. It is good for a general knowledge of reading facial expressions. I personally struggled with the emotions of happiness, flirting, love and similar more happy emotions. I found that those emotions looked very similar in the pictures. But, I also think that I might have a harder time differentiating them because I am typically around people that are more serious or sad looking. Since I do not have as much exposure to more fun looking people, it could affect how well I can read facial expressions. I know I will get a lot more exposure to facial reading the more I take psychology classes and learn about clinical psychology.

--Original published at Jill Distler's Psychology Blog

Before taking this short and kind of fun test by the Greater Good, I thought I was pretty great, if not amazing at reading emotions of people, but my results showed otherwise. I got a 60 percent, which shows room for improvement, but apparently my score is pretty average. I think this test can be credible because of its affiliation with the University of California Berkley. I found that I was the worst at recognizing the faces that were embarrassed and the ones that were showing emotions directed towards love/ flirtatiousness. So, saying that I am amazing at reading the emotions of people is a pretty incorrect statement about myself, but I am actually alright with admitting that because this kind of skill doesn’t really set a person apart from another in a professional setting. It does help to understand if a first date is going well, or if an interviewer is interested in you for a position you had applied for. Thinking about it more deeply, I am now realizing how the people I tend to spend a lot of time with actually express their emotions through their faces. My boyfriend always has a small smile when he tries to act as if he is mad, even when he isn’t. My best friend Hannah always crinkles the left side of her face when she is confused, and I know that I have a “resting bitch face” when I am just relaxed and/or indifferent about any particular situation. The human face is comprised of many muscles and has many functions due to the structures housed on this specific location of the body, such as: the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.   

--Original published at Jess Principe's Blog

by: Jess Principe

The score of my facial expression recognition quiz was a 15/20. I feel this score correlates well with what I thought it would be because I feel I can read emotions better than most people just from being the type of person who cares how others are doing. I try to pick up on things such as body language or behavior that seems out of place from how my family and friends typically act because I love and care about them. Sometimes facial expressions are confusing and don’t appear to be what you think the face represents. For example, flirtatious can look like happiness and shame can look like embarrassment. Reading facial expressions can directly correlate with communication because when people don’t reveal their feelings through words, facial expression can create a different image to help better understand how a person is feeling.

The facial expressions quiz is mostly credible but does have some flaws. For example, most people’s facial expressions are not as strong as the ones presented in the photos. Also, one of the emotions listed was “love” which isn’t very clear of what that alludes to- is the person in love with another person or do they love something they see? Another example is the difference between shame and embarrassment are very similar both in meaning and the facial expression and the quiz makes it hard to understand which is which. The biggest take away though with the credibility of the quiz is that it makes it obvious that some facial expressions are harder to distinguish than others, however, in real life most people show mild versions of the facial expression images shown or a combination of emotions can exist for one facial expression. For example, if someone has a big smile on their face and eyes are wide, they could be happy, excited, surprised, or proud. Likewise, if someones face looks solum, they could be sad, angry, ashamed, or embarrassed, and it would be hard to distinguish.

--Original published at Emily's college blog

In this ted talk, Dan Gilbert discussed how people synthesis their own happiness and displayed data to show why synthesis happiness is real.  What I found interesting was that no matter what hard situations the people in the first example were in, they still found ways to be happy.  I think this is very uncommon in today’s young society due to social media. People go on social media and think they are living a boring and uneventful life because they are seeing other people brag about their life in an extraordinary way.   Sadly, this can be the cause of depression in many teens, especially girls, making synthesizing happiness even harder.

Gilbert seemed like a credible and trustworthy speaker.  His data from past experiments did an accurate job of revealing how people synthesis their own happiness, even if they do not know they are.  I also find his message to be reasonable, favorable advice.  Life will not always be perfect, so synthesizing happiness could make a lot more people satisfied with their life. 

I can incorporate more synthetic happiness into my life if I stop overthinking, comparing myself to others, and become more grateful for everything I have.  Almost every day I find myself overthinking or being indecisive about many decisions that I have to make.  During his Ted Talk, it made me realize that just like the students in his study, I overthink a right or wrong choice because I let it drag out and cause me stress.  Just like the students, when I have to make fast decisions, I am happier with the outcome because I did not have to spend so much time deciding which one I would like more.