Frowning

People frown involuntarily when they feel grief, disgust, bitter, sour or pain.
Frowning involuntarily means the corners of mouth are turned down.

Grief makes grieving people frown when they think about the dead person. Disgust makes people frown when they smell fecal matter. Bitter makes people frown when they taste pure cocoa. Sour makes people frown when they eat a lemon. Pain makes people frown when they are injured.

Seeing grief-frowning makes mothers feel grief.
When a mother sees another mother frown from grief, she imagines losing her child and the maternal grief it would cause her.

People also frown voluntarily.
People frown voluntarily to pretend to feel a negative emotion or to say no without using words.

Frowning is not a reliable indication of what others feel.
If someone frowns, you don't know if it's voluntary or involuntary. Even if you know it's involuntary, you don't know which emotion caused it - grief, disgust, bitter, sour or pain. Somebody maybe frowning because they are pretending to be unhappy, feeling grief from a death, disgust from rancid milk or pain from a bad back.

Frowning is a good indication of what you feel.
You know if your frowns are voluntary or involuntary. If you frowned involuntarily, you either felt grief, disgust, bitter, sour or pain. By recalling what you were thinking about when you frowned, you can identify which emotion caused it. If you were focused on a somebody who died, it was grief. If you were smelling food, it was disgust, If you burned your hand, it was pain.

Understanding what makes you frown involuntarily helps you identify moments of unhappiness to avoid.

​For more about emotions, visit:  Happiness Dissected