“It has been found that people are more sensitive to negative faces, picking sad and angry expressions out of a crowd more quickly than positive ones. This is perhaps because we use them as indicators of threat.”

“Where body language is giving mixed signals (eg. a smile that borders on a grimace or fails to involve the eyes) then the more negative, less socially desirable component is usually the more telling. This is because we are more often motivated to conceal unpleasant truths and anti-social feelings than pleasant, benign ones.”

“Women are generally more intuitive about reading the faces of others but they are also easier to read (by both men and women). This is because women tend to be more emotionally expressive.”

“Research confirms that we are more comfortable with people who are familiar looking, whether we know them very well or have not previously met them.”

“Faces may be hard to read because humans are complex social animals that have learned to suppress the display of emotions for various reasons. It is often inappropriate to show negative emotions like hatred and contempt in public, so people go about wearing socially acceptable faces rather like masks.”

“Mirroring the body language of the interviewers may be a way of increasing rapport and making them feel more receptive towards you.”

“The reason we can assess people so rapidly is that we compare what we see before us with a set of previously established stereotypes - expectations based on what we have been told and what we have gained from past experience. Usually there is some element of truth in these stereotypes but they can also be misleading.”