Is the Smile Trustworthy?

Reviews the book, Lip Service: Smiles in Life, Death, Trust, Lies, Work, Memory, Sex, and Politics by Marianne LaFrance (see record 2011-23830-000). This book is somewhere between entertainment for the curious layperson and challenge for the serious student of facial behavior. In the tradition of Ray Birdwhistle, the study of facial behavior as communicative performance with accompanying cultural and individual variability parallels the complexity of describing the world’s many languages and dialects. In her book, LaFrance continues the largely speculative Birdwhistle tradition with a focus on the smile. Most of the distinctions discussed in Lip Service are likely measurable through examination and description of the facial muscles that are activated and definition of the timing and intensity of facial behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)