Flat Affect?

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Is there any way a person can get rid of their flat affect? I feel emotions but I have a very difficult time expressing them. People say I should smile more often but when I do it looks very fake and insincere. Does anyone else have this problem?

no. i have the other extreme which can also happen with AS.

rubber face shoudl be my middle name

when I smile - it looks ret*d (sry)
my natural face looks blank and sad - people ask me "Jeff, are you OK?" for no reason

running for 20-40 minutes a day helps with the flat effect, especially if you run 30 minutes three times a week for at least several months

Sounds like I need to start getting in shape then.

tthis issue, which I to experience, really tics me off.

it usually goes: some numpty comes up and says 'why are you so angry, glaring atme, unhappy' etc.

i've got so tired of these people and i now actually recognise them coming.

They're usually the ones who are laughing all the time, you know the type - i'm the life and soul of the party and having so much fun you can tell because i'm smiling and laughing?

i've no problem with that, fill yer' boots.

But when they question me why i'm not laughing inanely I now recognise that with them their laughing is all afront and my flat expression makes them nervous that their reaction may be innapropriate or worse they recognise that their behaviour is border line hysterical.

just tell them that you have an unfortunate face, this usually shuts them up.

^ great iggy avatar, badmachine.

Camilla said:

'great iggy avatar'

mmm, yes a bit of unintentional irony there.Mr Pop's phisog does seem appropriate to this thread.

The only solution I know of is lots of practice.

It's possible to "routinize" some aspects of facial expression (for instance the greeting verbal exchange is fairly standard, so it is fairly easy to smile in the right places by studying how others do it, and applying it very consistently).

For smiling it helps to practice in the mirror, thinking about the upper part of your face. Opening your eyes and lifting your brows somewhat but not too much (this is why the mirror helps, too much eye and brow, and you just look demented instead of fake) and getting lift and "puffing" in the checks, tends to make smiles look "proper". The mouth is less important, but make sure to avoid extremes (such as stretching your lips super wide and baring your teeth).

A lot of expression is actually in the brows from my observation and experimentation. If you can "open up" the eye area (without looking wide eyed) then you appear "interested" and "approachable" or something.

This makes sense to me. I don't run, but I've started walking several miles to work, very briskly, rather than take the bus, and I've noticed that somehow it makes my face raise the cheekbones or cheek muscles or something so that my face is actually in a sort of smile when I arrive at work. When I go to the loo, I see in the mirror that my face looks cheerful. And also has more colour in it, which is seen as a positive attractive thing. If you look pale (obviously this only applies to white people) then somehow you look less emotional.

this improves circulation, increases muscle tone, and it is like meditation for your brain. but you've got to do it three times a week for at least several months before other people start to notice a little effect.

OK, i'm not a big fan of of formal exercise.

So just confirm tht i've got this right - to ensure I display a cheerful face with more colour and generally appear positive, attractive, sociable and approachable from now on I should drop my pants, take a dump and extend my hand, confident that I am giving off a positive impression.

I'm not usually flat I'm more over expressive, although if I'm thinking my face pulls a scoul or something similar, or sometimes a stupid smirk.

Here try this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KBEOYzFFWM&feature=related[/youtube]

that's me posing for photos

Me too. I avoid pictures being taken of me at all costs.

I have developed my own theories of social psychology because the stuff out there is structured more for NTs than AS. I think they skip over vast subject areas because those are instinctive for them.

My theories of social cognitive behavior include the fact that all social cognitive behavior breaks down into three phases: impression phase, update/processing phase and expression phase. Let's focus on impression and expression phases for now.

Impression phase is the brain and emotional processing we do as social stimuli come in, and expression phase is the brain and emotional processing we do as we project action and affect.

Impression phase social cognitive behavior corresponds to our sense of identity -- our understanding of the world and our place in it. How we perceive and internalize incoming sensory information.

Expression phase social cognitive behavior corresponds to our personality -- how we project our selves onto the world. It is how we externalize and express emotion and affect.

So according to the system I created (social psychology from an AS perspective), developing affective skills are part of one side of learning social skills, a part that is expressive and action-and-emotion related. Affective skills have to be practiced because there are mental dimensions as well as mood and muscular basis for having a good affect. Affective skills that people can work on include:

How to smile: this is like acting lessons, connecting to your inner child, developing the muscles in your face, practicing until you literally train yourself in how to do some smiles that express different emotions. After you learn some smiles, they will come more and more naturally as you use them and start training yourself to be comfortable projecting emotion to others around you.

How to posture: again, these are like acting lessons, learning how to have certain postures when you have certain moods, like happiness, confidence, anxiety, determination, caution. As you develop a set of postures and body language for different moods that you are in (try real acting methods), your muscles start to do them automatically. Then they will start coming naturally as you start training yourself to be comfortable projecting emotion onto others around you.

Exercise and health: good body tone, energy and action all translate to a more active sensori-motor state and more active muscle response. Exercise is really important to projecting good affect since most of projecting affect involves small muscle groups and requires energy.

Again, developing personality and presence is about the expression phase of your social mind. Developing expression phase skills are all about projecting emotion and attitude accurately and being in shape and practicing real mood-related postures and smiles (i.e. method acting and acting skills) really helps.