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A poker face can be useful at a card table, but ordinary social life rewards a different strategy. Scientific American’s April 2025 article “Why People Like Expressive Faces” argues that smiles, raised eyebrows, frowns and other facial movements do more than advertise emotion. They make a person easier to interpret, and that apparent readability can make others like them more.

Expressiveness as social information

Humans produce an average of 101 facial movements per minute during a typical social interaction, according to the article. The authors place that activity in an evolutionary context: people have long depended on close social bonds for food, shelter and protection, so traits that helped them form and maintain relationships could have been valuable. Facial movement may serve that function by making intentions and reactions more predictable.

The key evidence came from an online study in which 52 people spoke by video with a researcher posing as another participant. The researcher created awkward or contentious situations, such as telling a bad joke or demanding 80 percent of a reward in a negotiation. These exchanges gave the researchers a way to observe facial movement during conflict, embarrassment and attempts to make a favorable impression.

The team also analyzed recordings of more than 1,300 people in free-flowing online conversations. Automated software coded small facial-muscle movements, and personality questionnaires revealed that more agreeable, extroverted or neurotic participants tended to be more expressive. Across the controlled interactions, both the social partners and 176 additional people who watched video clips generally liked the more expressive participants more.

Readability matters more than smiling

The result was not simply a preference for cheerful faces. Happy expressions were well liked, but highly expressive people were rated more favorably even when they were not especially smiley. A raised eyebrow can signal attention, a knowing smile can convey shared understanding, and a stern look can discourage an action without any of those movements mapping neatly onto a single emotion.

To test whether expression actually communicated inner experience, the researchers asked participants to report their thoughts and feelings at several moments in an interaction. Other people then watched the video and tried to read what had been happening internally. More expressive faces transmitted that information more accurately, and participants who seemed easier to read were also more likable. The proposed mechanism is straightforward: when another person’s face appears legible, the uncertainty of a new relationship falls. Someone who seems understandable may also seem safer and more predictable.

Expressiveness also remained fairly stable when situations, partners and emotions changed. That consistency suggests it may function partly as a personal trait rather than only as a reaction to the moment. The article notes, however, that being reserved can have benefits of its own. Revealing less may protect someone from vulnerability, and people can build attractive social relationships through routes other than facial animation.

A promising association, not a social rule

The studies show a relationship between facial expressiveness, apparent readability and likability, but they do not establish that deliberately moving one’s face more will cause others to respond warmly. The main structured interaction involved only 52 people, took place online and used scenarios orchestrated by a researcher. Personality, comfort with video, culture or an unmeasured social skill could influence both expression and likability. The evolutionary explanation is plausible, but the research described here does not test it directly.

The strongest takeaway is therefore narrower than “smile more.” Facial movement is a stream of social information. By making attention, intention and reaction more visible, it can help another person feel that an interaction makes sense. In everyday conversation, the advantage of an expressive face may be less about displaying happiness than about reducing the mystery between two minds.