Expert warns about terrifying facial expression which could be sign someone is a psychopath

If you reckon someone's giving you a funny look, it seems we should be reading more into it rather than just brushing it off.

A facial expression expert has warned that a certain chilling stare can actually be a telltale sign that a person is a psychopath.

Annie Sarnblad touts herself as a master at reading microexpressions - which she describes as the 'subconscious leakage of emotion that make the unspoken feelings visible'.

The self-described human lie detector is even certified in the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which deconstructs all human expressions into a set of basic facial movements.

She can numerically code the 10,000 muscle combinations involved when people wince, frown, pout or smirk. Wowza.

During an appearance on Lewis Howes' (@lewis) podcast, The School of Greatness, Sarnblad revealed the trademark traits of a psychopath and how you can spot one in your midst.

Warner Brothers/Getty Image

She sat down with the former football player turned business coach to explain some of her 'easy-to-absorb teaching techniques' and share her knowledge on microexpressions.

The expert began: "If I'm in a scary situation - something scares me or somebody jumps out or there's a loud noise - I'm going to pull my upper eyelids back."

Howes put it best when he described them as 'crazy eyes', before they both agreed on the fact that people only tend to widen their eyeballs when they're scared or shocked.

Sarnblad added: "The only time we will pull up our eyelids back and hold them is like a rollercoaster, a haunted house...you know, terror!

"We never hold our upper eyelids pulled way back, except when we're nuts."

YouTube/lewishowes

She explained that psychopaths like to show off their sclera - aka, the white of their eyes - as much as they can.

The facial expression expert then suggested that we should analyse some snaps of our favourite celebrities to understand what she is talking about - and try and spot any A-list psychopaths.

She told Howes: "There's a lot of people in the public eye, if you look at pictures of them they have their eyes like that a lot.

"They're showing their sclera... look at Ted Bundy, Hitler, school shooters."

Sarnblad that despite doing tons of research on the phenomenon, she still isn't sure why we tend to show the whites of our eyes when experiencing 'mental instability and volatility' or the sensation that you are unsafe.

The body language boffin added: "But I almost always find that somebody who's committed a heinous crime and a really violent crime, they're almost always have 20 to 30 percent of their pictures that you can find up online where they're holding their eyelids up."

So if someone's showing you their sclera... run.

Topics: Weird, News, Celebrity, Crime, True Crime

Olivia Burke

Olivia is a journalist at LADbible Group with more than five years of experience and has worked for a number of top publishers, including News UK. She also enjoys writing food reviews (as well as the eating part). She is a stereotypical reality TV addict, but still finds time for a serious documentary.

@livburke_