In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is resting bitch face.
Okay, so the term resting bitch face certainly doesn’t sound scientific, and it isn’t. However, it does seem to be related to an actual physical phenomenon. So, do some people actually have a not-so-pleasant-looking neutral facial expression, and if so, why?
Emotional expressions
As far back as Charles Darwin, certain facial expressions of emotions were believed to be universal across geography and cultural groups. A fair bit of research evidence has accumulated to back this up, particularly with respect to the emotions anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise.
Macroexpressions, which last 1/2 a second or more and involve the entire face, are the easiest to pick up. There are also microexpressions, which only last fractions of a second. These appear to be involuntary, and they’re produced by a different part of the brain than macroexpressions.
When we encounter other people, we automatically try to assess their emotional state based on their facial expression. Even when the expression is neutral, we still try to look for something, even if that something is too minor to represent actual emotion states. We then make generalizations based on what we think we see.
Facial expression analysis and RBF
Testing done with Noldus’s FaceReader facial expression analysis tool showed that most people’s neutral expressions were 97% neutral, while the remaining 3% included bits of emotional expressions. The neutral facial expressions of Kanye West, Kristen Stewart, and Queen Elizabeth were 93% neutral, with another 6% demonstrative of subtle indicators suggesting emotions, primarily contempt. These subtle emotional cues included a tightening of the eyes and certain changes around the lips. Not a big shift, but enough for our minds to decide it’s there.
Wikipedia provides this picture of French King Louis XIV as an example of resting bitch face. To me, the tightening of the lips stands out as RBF-ish.
Curious as to whether you have resting bitch face? You can visit the site TestRBF.com, upload a photo, and find out FaceReader’s analysis. There’s no easy-to-find privacy info on the site, and you don’t have to enter personal details, but presumably, after you upload your neutral expression photo, they will add that photo to their database. The bigger their database is, the more the technology can artificially learn, and the more effective FaceReader can be.
There are plastic surgery websites that claim that they can correct resting bitch face. Given that RBF is associated with actual physical cues, I’m sure surgery can have an effect. Whether anyone should care enough to pay to go under the knife is a whole other question. On a somewhat related note, years ago, there was a local male reporter whose resting expression included a very scrunched-up forehead. It was prominent enough that it was a bit distracting. Eventually, he must have gotten Botox, because no more scrunching, and it made him look calmer and more self-assured.
The role of sex/gender
Facial recognition software shows that resting bitch face is distributed evenly across the sexes, but socially, it seems to be viewed as a female thing. Samantha Grossman writes in The Week that “If you’re a woman and you have a face, chances are good that at some point, you’ve been accused of having ‘resting bitch face.'” Perhaps part of the issue is that women are socially expected to smile, so not smiling gets conflated with resting bitch face.
A paper in the journal Emotion argued that emotional first impressions are used to assess different things depending on whether the person being observed is a male or a female. If it’s a female, perceived cues indicating negative emotions are used to judge attractiveness. If it’s a male, those visual cues are used to judge the level of threat.
While it would be easy to write off RBF as something that’s purely sexist, it seems like there really is an interplay between the way our brain evaluates small differences in facial expression and the cultural importance that’s placed on certain forms of emotional expression. Less black and white, more shades of grey.
Do we judge?
In my first-year math class, a particular female classmate caught my attention because she had resting bitch face. I never had occasion to interact with her, so I knew nothing about what she was like as a person. The next year, we ended up becoming close friends, but I still thought she had resting bitch face.
Perhaps the lesson is to take our first impressions with a grain of salt. We’re hard-wired the same way our caveman ancestors were when we had to make snap judgments about who to let into our cave, but usefulness in some contexts doesn’t make it accurate.
References
- Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H.S. (2011). Science Brief: Reading facial expressions of emotions. American Psychological Association.
- Hester, N. (2019). Perceived negative emotion in neutral faces: Gender-dependent effects on attractiveness and threat. Emotion, 19(8), 1490.
- Grossman, S. (2019). The insidious sexism of ‘resting bitch face’. The Week.
- Gibson, C. (2018). Scientists have discovered what causes Resting Bitch Face. Washington Post.
The Psychology Corner has an overview of terms covered in the What Is… series, along with a collection of scientifically validated psychological tests.
Ashley L. Peterson
BScPharm BSN MPN
Ashley is a former mental health nurse and pharmacist and the author of four books.
Never knew this term.
An interesting read.
I learnt something new today.
Study of humans always intriguing.
Thank you Ashley
Humans are fascinating creature.
First time I heard this expression was actually the male version of it. It was on Michael’s blog and he called it ‘resting prick face’.
Haha, I remember that. 😁
Interesting to know this too
I liked the video – However I look that’s how I feel – I’ve got one of those faces – not hard to read me at all. My late, great cat, Miss Frankie Lulu Belle had the most extreme RBF…
Forget grumpy cat, people need to start worshiping Miss Frankie Lulu Belle as the grumpster!
A blogger whose blog I read says she has cultivated her RBF as a way of stopping people invading her personal space on crowded public transport (pre-COVID).
As a child, I was sometimes told off by my parents for giving “black looks” at people when I did not intend anything wrong, which I assumed was some kind of autistic thing, but may be RBF. Certainly I know how to deliberately use my face and general body language to get people to leave me alone not unlike the blogger I mentioned.
I’ve never come across any articles, but it would be interesting to read about how people with autism, mental health health issues, etc. use facial expressions not only to mask but to give off “leave me alone” type messages.
People with hearing loss depend heavily on facial expressions to decipher words. I often lose about half the conversation due to hearing loss but get by understanding 75% or more of the verbal context simply because I watch the face and body language.
My French isn’t great, but I can understand way more if I can see the person talking vs. just hearing them; I can see how that face/body language element would be really important with hearing loss.
I have it, which I attribute to pain. I’m usually a bit “scrunched up” because something hurts. Men used to demand I SMILE! which is so fucking irritating, but I thought those days were gone. Nope! Some older guy told me to smile the other week at a concert while I was looking for my seat number and trying not to step on people’s feet. It’s infuriating that a stranger thinks he has the right to comment on my face. Women have never told me to smile…
Pain would definitely do it. People who feel entitled to comment on how someone else is presenting themselves physically really need to learn to STFU.
I have 2 questions, 1) I would love to know if Queen Elizabeth has a resting bitch face and 2) ‘if you’re a woman, and have a face’… WHAT… what is the thing called then? Can somebody not have a face?
According to what the FaceReader software comes up with, Queen Elizabeth does have RBF, which is interesting, because her smiling face isn’t bitchy at all.
The thing about being a woman and having a face was to do with sexism and women being expected to smile and be pretty all the time, and the person was suggesting any neutral expression on a female face would be considered bitch by men.
Ohhhhh 🤦🏻♀️
What I have
Does that feel like a good thing or a bad thing?
🤔 not sure really…
Loved reading this. RBF is a really funny term… but to actually analyze it because it is a real phenomenon–I think this a classic post.
Thanks!
I love how much thought and analysis you gave this!
I don’t think I have RBF. I feel like I am not very good at manipulating my facial expressions properly though. Like I have one facial expression. That is one reason why I did not go into theater. (The other reason is a lack of talent).
I would be completely useless at theatre…
Great post! I love how the person in the video says “who gives a sock.” LOL
Yeah, that’s pretty fun. 😁
I have the worst RBF even more so on my meds.. 😆 people always say to me oh I thought you hated me or I thought you were a bitch when I first met you 😆 I can’t help it it’s just my face! Xx
Oh no!!!
I don’t mind. It keeps people away from me 🤣🤪
Perfect!
It’s interesting how faces rest at “neutral”, and how we then interpret those that aren’t as neutral as we expect them to be. Some are more negative in emotion, but I’m sure I’ve seen plenty of people who, either in a still photo or when acting and trying to look neutral, end up looking like they’ve got a small smirk playing with their lips.
The dickturd in UK government who has since resigned, Matt Hancock, is one of those with a smirk continually on his face. But at least we know that initial judgement is correct. It’s not just how his face looks. He really is just a smarmy bastard.
I’d never heard of TestRBF before. It’s one of those things I find I’m curious about, but then can’t help but wonder whether my head will appear on someone else’s body in a porn video one day.
I think the whole Resting Bitch Face thing is usually applied to women, too. It’s one thing to say someone has RBF, but another to make inferences on their character just from the natural set of their face. It makes me think of the “Karen” malarky that got taken far out of context, which I don’t like at all. It’s somehow niggling away at how boring, nagging and severe we mere little ladies are.
I agree with you there. It’s an automatic way we form judgements and assessments in split seconds, so such inferences we make aren’t necessarily accurate.
I used to get told quite a lot when I was younger to stop being so miserable or “smile, it might not happen”, all the usual naffness. Anyway, most of the time I was really surprised because it was just my face. I wasn’t miserable, I was just stood around waiting, no emotion affecting my face. I guess I just has Resting Miserable Face.
I think Resting Fuck Off face would be a good thing to have…
Also, smarmy bastard face should come complete with a tattoo on the forehead to give people full warning.
I have it apparently. Been told I look sax or angry. Most of the time I’m just deep in thought.
*sad or angry. I have been told that I look aloof or something. I consciously make the effort to smile and look more friendly in settings I need to build rapport with people. But I definitely like being able to have “a black look” so people don’t hassle me. I’m usually anxious and people pleasing, so if I can reduce the frequency of being hassled by irritating people trying to push a product on me or answer some “just a minute!” surveys (which are often way longer than a minute)… yay for RBF!
Woohoo!!!
❤🔥❤