People often assume that a person's face will betray their true emotions—even when that person is trying to hide them. As we go about our days, we watch other people's facial expressions and mannerisms, looking for signs of stress, sadness, and happiness in our coworkers and our loved ones.
But if we want to understand the mind of another person, is that the best way?
Not always, according to a recent study. It turns out people tend to overestimate their ability to read other people's emotions from their facial expressions—which means that we may be missing out on opportunities for understanding and connection.
The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, compared observing facial expressions with a second perspective-taking strategy: putting ourselves in a similar situation, or "taking a walk in someone else's shoes." It's the first study to examine how effective people think these different methods are with how effective they actually are...read more>>>...