We tend to think of emotional regulation as something we achieve through discipline or maturity or will. Ed Tronick's Still Face Experiment suggests otherwise. What it reveals, in three quiet and devastating minutes, is that we are built for reciprocity; and when the face we reach toward goes still, something in us (eventually) goes still too.

Our biology insists on honesty even when our psychology does not. The flush rising in our cheeks, tears springing to our eyes, our voice breaking when we speak of what matters. We are, whether we like it or not, transparent.