Microexpressions And Habits...

A glance beneath the mask...

So… I have been thinking about microexpressions lately, and considering how they affect a psychopath’s life versus a neurotypical’s. You might think that it would be one and the same, but for a psychopath, microexpressions are intentional actions that become a habit as opposed to something that is involuntary.

Weird… right?

For a psychopath, when something happens, the reaction is going to pretty much be, shrug, if that. There is very little response to things in general, and that includes things that can greatly affect neurotypicals. Over time, this becomes something that we not only realize, but have to adapt to. We have to appear to be at least marginally affected by circumstances that bother others. If we don’t, it will be considered strange.

We come to this conclusion at a fairly early age and start to hone in on the idea of making our facial responses match the circumstances that we are in. When we are younger, we are crap at this. Our expressions will either be underdone or overdone. There is really very little that can be done about this. There is a learning curve to everything. Over time, however, we learn the appropriate responses that are expected, and mimic the necessary facial features.

From the onset, psychopaths and neurotypicals diverge when it comes to microexpressions. For NTs, this is something that is normal and expected. For psychopaths, this is something that becomes habit without emotion. What do I mean by that?

I was out with my Significant Other and our dog for a walk tonight. While on this walk, another dog came charging out of a house and directly to our dog with the intent of attacking her. My SO and I are similarly minded. The only thing that mattered was stopping the incoming attack on our dog, no matter the cost. If we had to beat the assailant to death, so be it. The person that the dog belonged to should have kept their dog under control. Whatever consequences came, they were due to their ill planning.

Fortunately for me, I was with my SO. He knows me, he understands my reactions to things, and he doesn’t expect me to be some emotional individual who reacts with fear or worry. Instead, when the dog came charging, I swiftly kicked it and diverted its intentions of latching onto ours. He then placed his body in between the two, while our dog pulled out of her collar and retreated down the street to safety. No part of this interaction caused my SO and me emotions. Instead, it created response. The dog’s owner came rushing down and swooped the dog up into a bear hug to prevent a further attack and apologized profusely. Fortunately, they directed their attention at my SO, not me.

You see, this is a circumstance where I might forget my habits and requirements. Had I needed to interact with this individual, I would need to have some sort of response that was circumstantially appropriate. Tonight, I didn’t. Adrenaline has a habit of making those habits get replaced by more natural responses, and those responses were not those of concern for anyone other than my dog. I am invested in her, and her well-being is my sole focus in that situation.

I could have been bitten, my SO could have been bitten, but both of us would be fine even if that were the case. However, if there had been real damage to our dog, that would be a whole different situation. In that situation, the other person would have had a real opportunity to see beneath the mask as I had little interest at the moment in maintaining it for anyone other than our dog. As I mentioned, my SO was there, so he could be the person that was directly interacted with the apologetic man.

When situations demand it, the mask can be forgotten. I came to the realization this evening after handling this, that microexpressions for me, for psychopaths, they are something that we enact to blend in, but they also become a habit. Have you ever heard of the experiment that involves strangers standing up?

Basically, the premise of this social experiment is this. A random person is recruited into a social experiment where he comes to an interview and has to wait with other people in a waiting room. Every once and a while, the other people will stand up when a tone is sounded. There is no explanation as to why this is occurring, but every time the tone sounds, they all stand up.

The new person, and the only person not involved in the setup, has no idea why this is occurring, just that it is, and over time will begin to adapt to that situation, and stand up as well. Again, they have no idea why they are doing this, but all the same they do. As time goes on, the individuals in the room filter out and the people who were part of the experiment, those who knew what was going on, would depart the room, and more people who had no idea would filter in.

This cycle continues until there is no one left in the room who has any idea what the premise was of the experiment, but they are still undertaking the behavior of the experiment all the same. In the end, people who have no relation to one another are perpetuating this behavior, but if you asked them why, they couldn’t tell you.

Microexpressions for me are sort of similar to this. Psychopaths lack the emotions and/or the depth of emotions that neurotypicals have that create their microexpressions. We have to learn that there are circumstances that an emotional read on the face is necessary. Usually, this is learned in childhood when we are instructed that guilt or remorse is required to earn a social pass for our misbehavior. If you apologize, but you don’t mean it, it is literally written all over your face. We have to learn to counter that. We enact expressions that create the emotional agreement that is being sought by our neurotypical parents.

At first, we suck at it. Overdramatic, underdramatic, absent when it is needed, you name it, we will suck at this in the beginning. It takes time to learn. However, as we learn, we also figure out that this reaction is expected quite often and in circumstances that we cannot fathom its necessity in. “Oh well”, we think to ourselves, and we practice having the correct microexpressions for the correct situations so we avert trouble in our lives.

Microexpressions are interesting to me. As much as I think that I might be showing one, I most likely am incorrect. There is a term when it comes to psychopaths, “flat affect”, that very much applies. It is the norm that takes no effort. when a microexpression is needed we are to break from this flat affect to look more neurotypical in our responses. However, often, it still isn’t enough to be seen. You have no idea how often I think that I am smiling slightly, only to glance in a mirror to see that I am incorrect. The smile is imperceptible to anyone else but me, and the only reason I know that it’s there is because it is an intentional action that I am undertaking. I have to try harder.

After time these things become a habit. We learn that in certain circumstances certain expressions are expected, and they go on an autopilot. You might think that means that we are acting without thought, but that isn’t it. There is still thought involved, intentional action required, but the two things are linked. Sad story=sad expression. It is something that we make it a point to learn and practice on a regular basis. That way, our internal self-interest doesn’t take over and make us simply stare blankly at the person we would prefer to stop downloading their woes on us so we can go back to what we were doing prior.

I think it might be similar to stage actors. They practice scenes again and again to make sure that they are easy to replicate perfectly night after night without much trouble. They are still part of a scene that isn’t part of their regular lives, but they become a sort of second nature without anything other than intellectual blocking to make them happen. That’s how we interact with the emotional world that presents itself all around us.

This leads us to a bit of an issue. Those microexpressions exist unless the mask is dropped completely. The dropping of the mask is an intentional act and one that isn’t done lightly. It can create misunderstandings over what we can feel and what we can’t. It is rare that someone interacting with a psychopath is actually going to see one of us stripped of the social niceties that we present to blend in. It would require a very specific set of circumstances to even consider it. Not only is it unlikely that a person is going to encounter us in one of those circumstances, it is even more rare that they will appreciate what they are seeing.

Why is that? Because neurotypicals really don’t want to appreciate how different we are from how they are. When it is seen it is often not believed, or it is filtered through the neurotypical emotional lens that they cannot shut off.

Going back to the incident from earlier tonight. Had that dog managed to latch onto our dog it would have been dealt with to the point it was no longer a threat. If this was a neurotypical, if they were able to make the decisions necessary to beat that other dog to the point of no longer being a threat it would be a combination of emotion and adrenaline. Not for me. It would be adrenaline that would dictate those actions, and my decision was made before that dog even got close.

Afterward, it occurred to me that the other guy was seeking cues from us that everything was okay. He needed emotional reassurance that there wouldn’t be negative consequences for his dog, and that all was forgiven. As far as I am concerned, the negative consequences are something for him to manage. He now knows he has a dangerous dog, and had best keep it under control. If not, it will have something bad happen to it. Mask off however, he will get no reassurance, and no anger from me. That is his problem, and he has to handle it. If it becomes my problem again, that is unfortunate for him and his dog. The only mask that I had at the moment was for our dog.

Cognitive empathy tells me this. Had someone been walking and another human suddenly charged at them without hesitation, I imagine that would be very scary. The only person who is getting my energy is our dog to know that she is okay and that she is protected. The amount of energy that would have been required for me to maintain a mask for anything else was not something I was willing to provide. My microexpressions were absent outside of the absolute necessity.

Microexpressions are something that become an enacted habit, but they will disappear if the circumstances are precisely right. When that occurs, most people do not know how to react to the person in front of them, which is why we are very careful about dropping the act under any circumstances. They are an intricate dance that we learn the steps of, but it will be quickly abandoned because they are never real.