If you were watching the news clips of Peter Dutton's remarks about refugees, wondering why his static face seems to lack emotion and expression- then take a closer look. As if his harsh words weren't enough, when you look closely, you can see his repeated microexpressions of contempt.
A microexpression is a fleeting facial expression that leaks our true emotion, in just a fraction of a second. There are 7 universal microexpressions, as discovered by Paul Ekman, the guy the TV show Lie to Me was based on. By universal, I mean that these expressions are within us all, across all cultures- they are innate. The 7 microexpressions are: happiness, sadness, contempt, disgust, anger, fear and surprise.
Contempt is probably the most powerful of the microexpressions and although it looks like a semi-smile (one sided smile), it actually means hatred and disdain.
Peter Dutton, repeatedly leaks contempt at Paul Murray's (Sky News) comments about refugees. Take a closer look, he flashes contempt 3 times, within the first 25 seconds of this clip.
You can see the first flash of contempt just 3-4 seconds into this clip, when Murray says Afghan refugees- "90% of Afghan refugees don't have a job".
Again, at around 15 seconds in, just after Murray says community- "Not only can they live in the Australian community, but prosper in it...".
And again, at around 23 seconds, just after Murray says conflict- "We've had 15 years of conflict in Afghanistan..."
Did you manage to spot them?
