How’d he do that?

Last night, I was watching The Apprentice. My husband has become more addicted to the show than I am.

At the end of the show, after Stephanie was fired, Donald Trump said to Chris, a 21-year-old real estate guy from Las Vegas as he was leaving the room, that he is always having problems…”and that he better get going…FAST…or he’ll miss his potential.”

Chris was standing in the doorway about to exit the room when he stopped and listened to Mr. Trump. His upper lip lifted up for a hair of a second but he didn’t show any teeth. It kind of quivered. I immediately sensed a very threatening feeling. My heart started to pound and I felt a real sense of danger. Chris then responded in a tense voice by saying thank you to Mr. Trump. It all happened in an instant.

I immediately asked my husband if he saw it. He said no. Thankfully, we had recorded it so I played it back in slow motion and pointed it out to my husband. He still struggled to see it but after a couple of playbacks he finally caught it with my guidance. The beauty of slow motion!

I knew this expression by Chris was an expression of deep anger at Mr. Trump. It was a rageful response. Chris was boiling inside as he has done on the show many times. Except this time, he was trying to be polite and hide it because he had just narrowly escaping being fired himself. Chris knew if he didn’t hold it in – he’d be let go on the spot. Even still, he couldn’t entirely contain his true emotions. They flickered for an instant.

Expressions are a wealth of information! I suspect this what experts would call a microexpression.

Ironically, too, after Chris left the boardroom, I think Mr. Trump had a sense of this as well because he responded to George and Carolyn that this Chris guy is really volatile and needed to be closely monitored. I wonder if he subconsciously registered what I did.

I believe he did.

When I went to bed, I was thinking about this expression. I wanted to see if I could make it myself — and I couldn’t. I was flat puzzled as I continually tried to find the right muscles to move my upper lip. He moved his upper lip upwards, yet didn’t show any teeth.

It was more like a twitch — a twitch of rage!

How did I know it was even anger, I asked myself. I was puzzled. I didn’t know this expression. I don’t ever remember seeing it before. Chris didn’t act angry at all with his verbal response or his body posture.

I asked my husband if he knew what that expression meant now that he saw it, and he was clueless. He didn’t get any feelings from it at all.

I just knew — instinctively– that it was a rage of some sort: a very serious rage. Perhaps innately I knew. Perhaps I registered it subconsciously. As Malcolm Gladwell would say, it was a rapid form of cognition — a form we don’t know too much about consciously.

After trying to make the facial expressions, I realized I couldn’t. More than likely because facial experts say we can’t mimic real feelings. The muscles we use to act out fake emotions are voluntary and totally different than the ones we use in a genuine expression of emotion. Genuine expressions involve using muscles that are activated involuntary.

The closest I came to making Chris’ expression was to flare my nostrils.

Try it. Flare your nostrils.

Does it make you feel a bit angry? Negative? Perhaps mad? Do you feel your heart race a bit?

Fascinating stuff!!