Is it possible to make yourself happier by smiling fakely? Since Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist, this question has been debated. Published a bookThe 1872 report on the subject.
“The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it… Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds,” Darwin wrote.
The idea has been reaffirmed by popular culture. The lyrics to Nat King Cole’s hit song “Smile”, released in 1954, read: “Smile even if your heart is aching.” […]It’s still worth living if you smile.
Is this a scientifically sound idea? A 1988 StudyPeople were asked to hold a pen with one hand to simulate smiling, and another with the other to simulate neutral expressions.
According to the study, smiling while not being aware of it increased people’s enjoyment when they were shown a cartoon.
A 2016 however meta-analysisThe pen-in-mouth trick was used to compile data from 17 studies. They found that they couldn’t replicate the original results.
Over the years, researchers have conducted other studies using various methods to determine how what’s written on our faces impacts how we feel. A 2019 Review of 138 studiesHowever, it was evident that smiling can have an effect on people’s emotions. But the impact was very small.
Now, researchers have recruited thousands of people from all over the world to painstakingly put this smiling effect to the test – again.
The study was published in Nature Human BehaviorA total of 3,800 volunteers were recruited from 19 countries. They were asked to smile and maintain neutral expressions using several prompts. Then they were asked for their happiness.
The researchers could have influenced the way volunteers rated smiling interventions if they knew the subject matter. The researchers created decoy experiments to evade volunteers.
They pretended that they were studying how small movements and distractions affected math solving abilities, and gave decoy instructions such as “Place your left arm behind your head and blink for 5 seconds.”
Three different 5-second smiling interventions were combined with the decoy tasks in an unrelated order.
Volunteers were required to hold a pen with their lips or put it between their teeth for one of the tasks. This was a duplicate of the 1988 study. However, there were some adjustments. No cartoons were used. Happiness was measured at the conclusion of the task instead of amusement.
Volunteers were required to mimic the expressions of actors in a second task.
A third task required participants to smile by moving their lips towards the ears and raising their cheeks.
Participants completed each task, including the decoy ones, and a simple math problem. A happiness and anxiety questionnaire was also completed. An anger, tiredness and confusion survey was completed to “obscure” the purpose of the study.
The happiness feeling was somewhat higher in smiling interventions, but it was more pronounced in mimicry and facial actions than in pen-in-the mouth tasks.
“Consistent in a previous meta-analysisThese results show that facial feedback may not only increase happiness, but can also create happiness in otherwise neutral situations,” the researchers stated. Send an email.
One possibility is that the study participants were happier if they did an active task (like mimicking a facial expression), than if they did a passive task (such like staring blankly).
The researchers compared neural expression tasks and active decoy tasks in order to control for this effect. The researchers found that smiling had a greater impact on happiness than simple muscle movements.
Half the participants saw a series positive images for each smiley task. The experiment tested whether smiling can increase happiness when there are positive stimuli.
The results revealed that happiness can be induced by both emotional stimuli and not.
Researchers found that people can fake a smile to influence their moods. People infer that smiling makes them happy, or that it activates biological functions associated with emotion.
You can improve your mood by smiling five seconds each morning in the mirror. It’s still debateable.
Researchers believe that it is possible for relatively small facial feedback effects to accumulate over time into significant changes in well-being. Send an email.
“Nevertheless, this paper argues that, despite the similar effect of positive visuals on happiness, it is unlikely that facial feedback interventions can be used to improve well-being.
This paper was published in Nature Human Behavior.
