Lemondrop

Home alone again on a Friday night? Convinced that cashier at McDonald's isn't really hoping you have a nice day? Don't worry -- according to a new study, you may be socially awkward, but you're more intuitive, too.

Miami University psychologist Michael J. Bernstein recently found that people who experience rejection pick up on social clues more astutely than their popular counterparts. Specifically, rejects can spot a phony smile 80 percent of the time -- 20 percent more often than people who feel accepted or neutral.

It would seem reasonable to think the opposite, that the friendless would latch onto any signs of friendliness, even the disingenuous ones. But Bernstein explains that "reading expressions and social cues" is an evolutionary skill.

What did the unpopular do to get such keen fraud-detectors? Tyra was right all along: Sincere folks smile with their eyes. Bernstein explains that socially awkward people judge smiling faces with more care and look at better indicative spots on the face.

"A real smile is not shown in the mouth; it's shown in the eyes," he says. "There are muscles around the eyes that are indicative of a real smile, whereas a fake smile just requires the mouth muscles." Ask a friend for a fake smile -- see, her eyes don't wrinkle in the same way they do when you actually make her laugh.

So what can we take out of this study? Popularity dulls your sincerity-o-meter.