>Studies Show Smiling can Lead to Happiness

>
Making certain facial expressions prompts people to experience slightly different affective states, studies show.

Participants in a study were asked to hold a pen in the mouth, thus making the muscle movements characteristic of a smile without the participants realizing it (Strack, Martin & Stepper, 1988). As they did this, participants judged whether different cartoons were humourous. These participants thought the cartoons were funnier than did a control group who made the same judgments without holding a pencil in their mouths.

-Raymond W. Gibbs noted in his book, Embodiment and Cognitive Science.

It’s not as easy as you might think to study the effect. For one thing, it’s possible that it’s not the physical smile itself, but the request that’s causing the emotional change. Researchers have attempted to get around that problem by simply directing people to move their facial muscles in a proscribed sequence (“Move your lips to expose your teeth while keeping your mouth closed.” “Now use your cheek muscles to pull the corners of your lips outward,” and so on). But still, it’s likely that research participants will catch on to the purpose of the study when they are asked whether they are feeling happy or sad.

In 1988 a team led by Fritz Strack came up with a brilliant cover story that allowed them to manipulate facial expressions without the research participants’ awareness. The researchers told participants that they were studying adaptations for people who had lost the use of their hands. Such individuals would need to use their mouths to hold pencils for writing, or to use a television remote. The study was to assess whether the unpleasantness or difficult of these tasks affected their “attentional abilities and responsiveness.” The current study on people with full use of their hands was simply designed to test the procedure.

The participants then held a pencil in their teeth (which naturally activates the muscles typically used for smiling) or lips (which does not activate those muscles), and then rated several cartoons for funniness. Those who were (unknowingly) “smiling” rated the cartoons as funnier than people who weren’t smiling. By D. Munger.

Sources: s1:Embodiment and Cognitive Science (By Raymond W. Gibbs. 2006. p 254-55). link
s2:”Just smile, you’ll feel better!” Will you? Really?” (by D. Munger. 11-27-2007.) link
s3:Soussignan, R. (2002). Duchenne Smile, emotional experience, and automatic reactivity: A test of the facial feedback hypothesis. Emotion, 2(1), 52-74. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.2.1.52