Without focusing on the entire face, you can always get invaluable messages from the way a person portrays their lips. Joe Navarro (2009), in his article, Lips Don’t Lie, states that: “Lips convey a lot of information that is often ignored or not even observed. Rich with nerves and highly vascular, the lips react in real time to the world around us. So when people receive bad news or witness a horrific event their lips begin to disappear, becoming very thin as vaso constriction takes place. Under extreme stress they disappear completely or are compressed together.” He furthered thus, “When it comes to feelings and emotions, the lips can be invaluable; they can even help us to detect deception.” From the foregoing, it means that if you are grounded in the reading of the lips of people, they cannot easily deceive you.
The fact is that our lips react to the reality of the moment and communicate accurately our feelings and sentiments to others. Lips body language is an unconscious action; we do not pay attention to it but those listening to us take note of how they move. Navarro refers to disappearing or compressed lips as universal behaviors. When a person bites or compresses their lips, it is a means of self-pacification when they are stressed. It helps to relieve tension that may be minor and transitory (Navarro, 2009).
Let’s start from the lip purse. A lip purse display is a slight, almost imperceptible, puckering or rounding of the lips. This gesture signals dissension or disagreement. The more pronounced the purse, the more intense the disagreement. Pursed lips mean a person has formed a thought in their mind that is in opposition to what is being said or done. Knowing what a person thinks gives you an advantage; the trick is to change their mind before they have an opportunity articulate their opposition. Once an opinion or decision is expressed aloud, changing a person’s mind becomes more difficult due to the psychological principle of consistency. Decision-making causes tension to some degree. When a person makes a decision, tension dissipates. They are less likely to change their mind because to do so would mean admitting their first decision was a bad one, thus causing increased tension (Schafer, 2015).
Another great technique that can be adopted in reading a person’s mind is to pay attention to their lip bite. A lip bite is a soft biting or tugging of the upper or lower lip with the teeth. This nonverbal gesture indicates that a person wants to say something but is hesitant to say it. People typically are hesitant to express themselves because they think what they are about to say will offend the person they are talking to, or make themselves look bad. Knowing that your spouse or friends object to something you said will allow you to communicate more effectively going forward. Prompting people to fully express themselves is as easy as making an empathic statement (Schafer, 2015).
The third under this category is lip compression. Lip compression occurs when the upper lip and lower form a tight seal, often obscuring the lips. Lip compression has a similar meaning to the lip bit, but with a more negative connotation: People want to say something but they compress their lips to prevent the words from coming out. As an FBI Special Agent, Schafer said he often saw suspects compress their lips right before they confessed. Using an empathic statement such as, “So you have something to say but you really don’t want to talk about it,” can prompt reluctant people to open their lips and express themselves (Schafer, 2015).
When lips are sucked into the mouth or turned under so the red part of the lips are hidden (‘swallowing the lips’), this can indicate that the person is thinking and uncertain about something, which could easily be bad news.Lip swallowing can also indicate suppressed speech, where the person is preventing themself from speaking when perhaps they know they should. This can indicate lying or maybe disapproval (Changing Minds, 2018).
Lips which are kept horizontal but squeezed flat are an exaggerated closing of the mouth (hence the name ‘lip press’) and may indicate a repressed desire to speak. This indicate disapproval (‘If I spoke I would be very critical, which I do not want to be’). It can also indicate frustration (‘I want to speak, but others are speaking and I feel I should wait’).Flattened lips can also indicate a refusal to eat, either because of dislike of offered food or some other motivation.Another possibility is distress, where the person is trying not to cry or turn down their mouth in sadness (Changing Minds, 2018).
When the corners of the mouth are turned upwards, this can be a grimace of disgust or a smile of pleasure. In a grimace, the teeth are unlikely to be shown (although toothless smiles are also common). Grimaces are often flatter and tenser. A full smile engages the whole face, particularly including the eyes. Smiling with lips only is often falsehood, where the smiling person wants to convey pleasure or approval but is actually feeling something else. When the corners of the mouth are turned down, it indicates sadness or displeasure. However, some people are so miserable so often, this is the natural state of rest of their mouths (Changing Minds, 2018).
When the lips are pulled back, they expose the teeth. This may be in a broad smile or it may be a snarl of aggression. The eyes should tell you which is which. In a snarl, the eyes are either narrowed or staring. In a full smile, the corners of the eyes are creased.Lips which are moving in the shape of words but without making sounds means that the person is thinking of saying the words. This sub-vocalization often happens with very small movement and is often completely subconscious. Stage mentalists use this when they ask their ‘victims’ to think hard of a word and then lip-read as they silently sound the word (Changing Minds, 2018).
References
Changing Minds (2018).Lips Body Language. Retrieved from http://changingminds.org/techniques/body/parts_body_language/lips_body_language.htm
Navarro, J (2009). The Lips Don’t Lie. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/200911/the-lips-dont-lie
Schafer, J (2015). How Our Lips Speak Louder Than Our Words. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/201505/how-our-lips-speak-louder-our-words
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