Spring is finally here, which means Florida is full of flowers and sunshine. I can’t help but notice these sunny days are prompting an increase in smiling — both for me and for others. It doesn’t hurt that summer vacation is a mere five weeks away, which adds to the abundance of positive facial expressions around campus. This happy mood inspired me to look into what smiles can tell us about a person and how we can benefit from flashing our pearly whites.
It is easy to differentiate a real smile from a fake smile. A real smile, called the “Duchenne” smile, utilizes specific facial muscles that cannot be used voluntarily. The orbicularis oculi, which raises the cheeks and forms crow’s feet around the eyes, is only contracted when expressing genuine positive emotions. A fake, “Pan-American” smile that indicates politeness only raises the corners of the mouth, not the cheeks or eyes. So next time you see someone smile at you, just check their eyes to see if they are faking or not.
One popular study in the field of positive psychology, performed by Harker and Keltner (2001), looked at the smiles that women expressed in their yearbook photos. If a woman flashed a Duchenne smile in her photo, she was more likely 30 years later to be married and score highly on measures of life satisfaction, stress management and quality of relationships. These findings remained even after controlling for other factors, such as attractiveness.
The reasoning behind this is that, if you express genuine positive emotion in your picture, you are more likely to feel more positive emotion in general. Positive emotions, theoretically, enable people to build social and psychological resources that can be called upon in future situations, thus contributing to our future well-being.
Smiling also just feels good, even when we are feeling bad. In her blog on happiness (http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/02/my-new-strategy.html), Gretchen Rubin made a pledge to act the way she wants to feel. Research shows that this technique actually works, because we often feel certain ways based on how we act. So if you are feeling grumpy, sometimes you can get out of your funk by making yourself act friendly and excited, even though you may not be in the mood. Another good technique to cure grumpiness would be to just go outside and soak up the spring sunlight. That tends to work for me, too.
