• Question: Why do we smile? What makes us associate smiles with happiness?

    Asked by bealeewh to Helen, Jenni, Mark, Martin, Stu on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Helen O'Connor

      Helen O'Connor answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Some researchers, including Paul Eckman (one of my favourite scientists http://www.paulekman.com/) have travelled all around the world finding groups of people who have had no contact with other cultures, and have found that there are six ‘universal’ facial expressions for ‘universal emotions’: these are disgust, sadness, fear, anger, surprsie, AND happiness.

      What universal means is that everyone, all over the world, recognises these emotions from the facial expression.

      Humans are also quite sensitive to whether a smile is real (this is called a “Duchenne smile” where both mouth and eyes are used) or false (called a “Pan American smile” which only uses the mouth and we use this type of smile just to be polite, or maybe to hide the fact that we are actually NOT happy at all)

    • Photo: Jenni Tilley

      Jenni Tilley answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Ooo, you should read ‘Quirckology’ by Riachard Wiseman if you’re interested in this. There’s lots on how to recognise a genuine smile, how making someone smile (by making them hold a paintbrush between their teeth) makes them feel happy and all sorts of things.

      It’s actually a fairly complex thing!

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