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Behavioral Research Blog

Throwing Shade: The Science of Resting Bitch Face

Posted by Jason Rogers, Ph.D. & Abbe Macbeth, Ph.D. on Oct 14, 2015

We all know the face. No, not just the face, but that  face. That look that she swears is not a look.

She says she’s not angry; she reassures you she’s having fun. But her face has been “throwing

shade” all night – without saying anything, that  face is indicating that she is not happy; more than

not happy, she’s about to make your night miserable too. There are plenty of memes, jokes, and

videos, much like this one, which make light of that  face, which in 2015 has become better

known as “Resting B---- Face” (RBF).

Some argue that the term itself is misogynistic . Others argue that it’s a misinterpretation of

something innocuous, like social anxiety. Although both make strong arguments, one could

spend longer than this blog to discuss all possible root causes. But the root causes may not even

matter, as that  face continues to stare at us, haunt us, and make us second guess our every

decision when it’s pointed in our direction. RBF. We recognize it in celebrities, on the streets,

and even in our own family. No currently celebrity has received as much ridicule for RBF as poor

Kristen Stewart, who (perhaps undeservingly) has become the poster child for such an affliction.

But way beyond the cultural norms and cruel jokes, we have to ask: is there something more to

RBF? What is the reason that we all react to that  face so negatively?

The answer may lie in our brains, which have evolved the fusiform face gyrus, an area that

specializes in recognizing faces , as well specific regions of the right parietal cortex that are

specifically activated when analyzing facial expressions . Pioneering work from legends in the

field of psychology, particularly Paul Ekman  and some of his colleagues, have contributed a vast

understanding of faces and how our brain recognizes them. With current technology, scientists

can go one step further in their research and automate facial expression classification using the

most sophisticated technology on the market today. This technology, called FaceReader , is

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capable of reading over five hundred points on the face to determine the emotional expressions

of the six ‘basic’ emotions: happy, angry, sad, scared, surprised, and disgusted. These emotions

are displayed by all people, across all races, genders, and ages. Since these ‘basic’ emotions were

identified over 50 years ago, researchers have added additional universally-displayed emotions

to the list. One of these later additions remains something of an enigma; not treated as a

universal expression until the 1990s, the emotion of contempt elicits strong debate.

While on the same continuum as anger, the philosopher Robert C. Solomon and others, such asresearcher John Gottman, treat contempt differently – it’s more a blend of anger and sadness

directed at those deemed below you. Contempt is maladaptive in that it is particularly toxic

when it develops between people in a relationship . While contempt can be displayed for a

variety of reasons, it’s easily recognized due to its curious facial phenotype: lips and brow not

quite angry or sad, the lip tightened and raised more strongly on one side than the other. But in

regards to this article: why is contempt included in a discussion on RBF?

Recently, consultants at Noldus Information Technology (Leesburg, VA) ran a series of videos

and images through FaceReader to determine whether RBF has a facial phenotype. Images were

taken from a Google search, focusing on celebrities (such as Kristen Stewart), as well as others

like Kanye West and Queen Elizabeth, and the video mentioned above. All faces in the images

were verified across social media as displaying true RBF. Both static images and running videos

were processed through FaceReader 6.1, one of the most sophisticated tools for automatically

measuring facial emotional expression. What emerged rather quickly was that across faces the

amount of anger, sadness, and fear displayed were highly variable…but to the surprise of the

research team, one emotion continued to rear its ugly head: the dreaded contempt. As shown in

Figure 1, contempt measures very low on 10 “normal” faces, only accounting for approximately

3% of the overall emotional expression. On 10 faces displaying RBF, however, the percentage of

contempt is significantly higher, almost doubling to 5.76% of the total emotion.

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8/19/2019 Rogers, J. & Macbeth, A. (2015). Throwing Shade: The Science of Resting Bitch Face.

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Fig1.

This is a fundamental and key point. FaceReader is not detecting enough contempt to reflect

true  contempt, because these faces are not  actually displaying contempt. It just looks  like

contempt to the viewer. Thus, it is the perception of that unconscious, subtle contempt

expression that defines RBF. Although that  face may not be intentional, the viewer’s brain is

wired to analyze, and recognize, when a face is displaying even minute traces of contempt.

Because contempt is based upon elements of comparison and judgment, viewing this in

someone’s face creates a feeling of uneasiness, or uncomfortableness, for the person viewing

8/19/2019 Rogers, J. & Macbeth, A. (2015). Throwing Shade: The Science of Resting Bitch Face.

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that  face. Look at Figure 2, which shows an example from another (perhaps deserving) RBF

celebrity: Kanye West. While we wouldn’t say Kanye is showing anger, or disgust, or any other

“negative” emotion we know that he isn’t simply ‘neutral’ either. Indeed, FaceReader registers

those minute amounts of contempt that are simply not present in non-RBF ‘neutral’ faces.

Fig 2 (Picture Kanye West By David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC BY 3.0

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 )], via Wikimedia Commons)

Need further convincing? Take a look at Figure 3, showing some additional faces; note the spikes

in contempt that FaceReader detects in these faces!

8/19/2019 Rogers, J. & Macbeth, A. (2015). Throwing Shade: The Science of Resting Bitch Face.

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Fig 3. Analyzed video from YouTube channel Broken People

Think you or a loved one may have RBF? Test yourself!

Not to promote something we won’t do ourselves, our author Abbe Macbeth allowed herself to

be used as an example of how contempt does not register on a neutral face without RBF; she’s

never been described as having that look when just neutral! In Fig 4 you can see her example –

the difference between this neutral and Fig 2 and 3 is quite clear: the spikes in contempt that are

observed in RBF are no longer present.

After analyzing your photo you just continue to defend: “See, I’m just thinking! I don’t have

RBF!!!”.!

8/19/2019 Rogers, J. & Macbeth, A. (2015). Throwing Shade: The Science of Resting Bitch Face.

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 Fig 4.

REFERENCES

1. Deutsch, F.M., LeBaron, D., & Fryer, M.M. (1987). What’s in a smile? Psychology of WomenQuarterly, 11, 341-352.

2. Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J., Chun, M.M. (1997). The fusiform face area: A module in

human extrastriate cortex specialized for facial perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 17,

4302-4311.

3. Adolphs, R., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., Damasio, A.R. (1996). Cortical systems for the

recognition of emotion in facial expressions. Journal of Neurosicence, 16, 7678-7687

4. Ekman, P. 1977 Facial Expression. In Nonverbal Behavior and Communication, eds

Siegman, A. and Feldstein, S. New Jersey.

8/19/2019 Rogers, J. & Macbeth, A. (2015). Throwing Shade: The Science of Resting Bitch Face.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/rogers-j-macbeth-a-2015-throwing-shade-the-science-of-resting-bitch 7/7

5. Lewinski, P., Fransen, M.L., and Tan, E.S.H. (2014). Predicting advertising effectiveness by

facial expressions in response to amusing persuasive stimuli. Journal of Neuroscience,

Psychology, and Economics, 7, 1-14.

6. Solomon, R.C. (1993). The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Hackett Publishing

7. Gottman, J., Levenson, R., & Woodin, E. (2001). Facial expressions during marital conflict.

Journal of Family Communication, 1, 37-57.

8. Abbe Macbeth, Ph. D. and Jason Rogers, Ph. D.

Topics: social behavior research, emotion recognition, FaceReader, facial expression analysis,

emotions, measuring behavior, RBF, Resting Bitch Face