informative speech on why smiles are contagious

The Oxford Scientist

The University of Oxford's independent science magazine

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A Smile can Change the World

by Aaliah Dhorat, Year 10, Batley Grammar School, West Yorkshire.

“Making one person smile changes the world… maybe not the entire world, but their world.”

Smiling is infectious, you can catch it like the flu; someone smiled at me today, and I started smiling too. Smiling is like a virus; it’s contagious like other viruses, spreading from person to person. It spreads in many forms, even reading, therefore this essay on smiling should improve your mood (thinking of smiling releases endorphins in your brain, so your mood slightly improves). Seriously, while reading this essay try not to smile, not even a little…

People usually smile when feeling pleasant. When experiencing positivity, the neuronal signals travel from your cortex to your brainstem. Then, the cranial muscle carries the signal towards the smiling muscles in your face. Sounds simple? However, that’s only where it starts…once smiling muscles in your face contract there is a positive feedback loop that goes back to your brain and reinforces your good feeling. To put it succinctly: smiles occur when our brain feels good, it sends messages to our facial muscles telling us to smile, and we smile and tell our brain that we feel good, and so forth. Moreover, the chemicals cause you to be healthier, and therefore smiling might just be as good as exercise.

Smiling has already changed the world: The theory of evolution (arguably) proves that humans have descended from apes. When a monkey bares its teeth, flattens its ears and tightens its throat muscles, it’s because they are afraid and bracing for a fight, so want to provoke the same feelings of fear in their opponent. However, when a human bares its teeth, flattens its ears and tightens its throat muscles, it is as a friendly gesture or to show that it’s feeling pleasant emotions. How did this odd evolutionary divergence occur? How did fang-flashing evolve into smiling? The main evidence comes from ‘missing link’ facial expressions from evolution.

What I find baffling about smiling is that people who are born blind show the same smiles as those who are under the same situations as sighted people; it’s surprising considering that they have never actually seen a smile. This proves that smiling has become a natural response to pleasant feelings. In other words, you don’t have to learn how to smile; smiling is pre-programmed behaviour.

Did you know that smiling stimulates our brain’s reward mechanisms in a way that even chocolate, a well-regarded pleasure-giver, cannot match? Another interesting fact is that a recent research concluded that smiling can be as stimulating as receiving up to 16,000 Pounds Sterling in cash; therefore, in theory, those who smile about 62 times a day feel like millionaires!

Have you ever caught yourself having a bad day and being in the worst mood, but then randomly smiling and feeling your mood lift when talking to someone who is smiling, or seeing someone with smile? According to various studies, smiling is ‘contagious’, proving the rumour right. When you see a smile, your orbit-frontal-cortex activates, which processes sensory rewards. Therefore, when you catch another person smiling you feel rewarded, which is a good feeling, causing a smile!

Research also shows that if you smile, even if you are in a bad mood, your mood will improve immediately, because the simple action of smiling is enough to trigger happy chemicals. Don’t believe me? Try it. The next time you are in a serious argument, smile and observe as the other person’s mood change and lighten a bit. The next time you have just received some bad news, smile and patiently wait for a few moments as you trick your brain into improving your mood. The next time you are in tears, simply smile and improve your mood.

To conclude, a smile has already changed the world according to evolution, and will continue changing the world because one of the most powerful things the world shares is the universal smile. A smile can cut through all barriers. It knows no prejudice. No matter who or where you are, your smile will always be understood. A smile represents something bigger. It represents goodwill, affection and openness. It wordlessly communicates happiness and acceptance. It connects and encompasses us all.

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Why smiles (and frowns) are contagious

Smile! It makes everyone in the room feel better because they, consciously or unconsciously, are smiling with you. Growing evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry allows us to empathize with and even experience other people's feelings. If we can't mirror another person's face, it limits our ability to read and properly react to their expressions. A Review of this emotional mirroring appears February 11 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences .

In their paper, Paula Niedenthal and Adrienne Wood, social psychologists at the University of Wisconsin, and colleagues describe how people in social situations simulate others' facial expressions to create emotional responses in themselves. For example, if you're with a friend who looks sad, you might "try on" that sad face yourself--without realizing you're doing so. In "trying on" your friend's expression, it helps you to recognize what they're feeling by associating it with times in the past when you made that expression. Humans extract this emotional meaning from facial expressions in a matter of only a few hundred milliseconds.

"You reflect on your emotional feelings and then you generate some sort of recognition judgment, and the most important thing that results is that you take the appropriate action--you approach the person or you avoid the person," Niedenthal says. "Your own emotional reaction to the face changes your perception of how you see the face, in such a way that provides you more information about what it means."

A person's ability to recognize and "share" others' emotions can be inhibited when they can't mimic faces, even from something as simple as long-term pacifier use. This is a common complaint for people with central or peripheral motor diseases, like facial paralysis from a stroke or Bell's palsy--or even due to nerve damage from plastic surgery. Niedenthal notes that the same would not be true for people with congenital paralysis, because if you've never had the ability to mimic facial expressions, you will have developed compensatory ways of interpreting emotions.

People with social disorders associated with mimicry and/or emotion-recognition impairments, like autism, can experience similar challenges. "There are some symptoms in autism where lack of facial mimicry may in part be due to suppression of eye contact," Niedenthal says. In particular, "it may be overstimulating socially to engage in eye contact, but under certain conditions, if you encourage eye contact, the benefit is spontaneous or automatic facial mimicry."

Niedenthal next wants to explore what mechanism in the brain is functioning to help with facial expression recognition. A better understanding of the mechanism behind sensorimotor simulation, she says, will give us a better idea of how to treat related disorders.

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Materials provided by Cell Press . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Wood et al. Fashioning the Face: Sensorimotor Simulation Contributes to Facial Expression Recognition . Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.12.010

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A Speech on “Why Smiles Are Contagious.”

When you happily smile at someone, many things happen during that short period of time without you knowing it.

It is proved that not just our curves and grins, but all of our various facial expressions are contagious, according to a paper published in a well-known journal.

We all are prone to mimic the smiles and frowns of other persons because it really helps us to understand better about what the other people are feeling, thus helping us to respond properly.

Based on some experiments and reviews, the researchers proved that when we mimic other’s facial expression, we can initiate that same emotional state in ourselves, which allows us to express and show an appropriate counter response.

Researchers proved that exercising your zygomaticus major muscle and orbicularis oculi muscle can actually help us in feeling better.

So what is happening with our brains when we smile? Imagine being in a happy situation, like meeting an old friend on the road. When our brains feel the emotion called happiness, endorphins are produced and the neuronal signals are transmitted to the facial muscles to initiate and produce a smile. This is the starting part of the positive feedback circle of pleasure and happiness.

At the time when our smiling muscles contract, they send a signal back to our brain, triggering and stimulating the reward system, and thus increasing the level of our happy hormones, or endorphins. In short, when our brain feels happiness, we smile and can feel the happiness as well; or we can also say that when we smile, our brain feels much happier.

Smile is the medicine which boosts your immunity to disease and other various illnesses. By letting go of the problematic disease called tension, a smile can make your entire immune system more powerful and capable of fighting the various problems called colds, flu, infections and illness.

Smile helps in enhancing your physical appearance.  For the most cases, we are attracted to people who smile often. A smile is very contagious. Especially the smile gives the vibes of a more toned, fresh, friendly and also a vibrant appearance before the others – making you look much younger than your actual age. 

Smile increases the production of serotonin and natural pain-relievers. While increasing the production of endorphins, smiling can also help your body to produce the natural painkillers that can help in the fight against various types of pains. On the other hand the production of serotonin helps regulate your mood.

A happy smile makes you to appear more trustworthy and successful before others. The people who smile more are being perceived as a more credible and to be more approachable. Both have a good impact on the procedure of doing good business or interact with the co-workers. Self-confidence can increase with a smile; which can offer an air of success to an individual.

Furthermore, smiling also has immense health benefits, like reducing our anxiety level, as well as reducing our high blood pressure and our heart rate as well. Thus, we do not need to eat any chocolate and money to be and remain happy and healthy. A single smile can do all the miracles.

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Smiling Really Is Contagious, And Here's Why

Senior Science Editor, The Huffington Post

When you beam at someone, a lot happens during that interaction without you knowing it.

It turns out that not just our grins, but all of our facial expressions are contagious, according to a paper published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences on Thursday.

We tend to mimic the smiles or frowns of others because it helps us better understand what other people are feeling, allowing us to respond appropriately.

Adrienne Wood, a Ph.D. student in psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author of the paper, told The Huffington Post that "sensorimotor simulation" in our brains is what causes this bizarre mimicry to occur without us even realizing it.

"When you see a facial expression and you want to know what it means, you recreate that expression in your brain," Wood said. "In daily life, you rarely observe facial expressions in a vacuum, and we believe that you combine information from sensorimotor simulation with your understanding of the situation in order to fully comprehend other people's feelings."

For the paper, more than 120 previous studies were reviewed to help describe how exactly we simulate the facial expressions of others in social situations.

Based on their review, the researchers concluded that when we mimic someone else's facial expression, we trigger that same emotional state in ourselves, which then allows us to formulate an appropriate social response.

"Our own lab has shown that making eye contact is one of the easiest ways to elicit facial mimicry," Wood said. "It probably sounds obvious, but if you want someone to really understand how you feel, or you want to understand how someone else feels, look them in the eyes."

Social psychologist Dr. Paula Niedenthal, Wood's adviser and a co-author of the paper, said that the key aspect of this mimicry is that it helps us make appropriate decisions in our interactions with others.

"You reflect on your emotional feelings and then you generate some sort of recognition judgment, and the most important thing that results is that you take the appropriate action -- you approach the person or you avoid the person," she said in a statement . "Your own emotional reaction to the face changes your perception of how you see the face, in such a way that provides you more information about what it means."

Other scientists, however, warn that facial expressions are complex, and there's still much left to learn about how we display and perceive them in different contexts.

"Facial mimicry certainly plays some role, and perhaps a key role, in understanding other people's emotional states," Dr. Kevin Ochsner, director of the social cognitive neuroscience laboratory at Columbia University, told the Christian Science Monitor. But Ochsner, who was not part of the paper, also noted that "it may not be sufficient by itself to carry a full understanding of what other people are feeling in every context."

Niedenthal noted in the statement that a person's ability to recognize emotions can be inhibited when they can't mimic expressions, such as due to facial paralysis or other disorders, like autism. The researchers hope that their new paper and future studies can help lead to interventions.

"Emotion recognition is one of our fundamental social tasks. But it’s not easy for everyone -- people with certain developmental or neurological disorders show reduced social functioning and emotion recognition abilities," Wood told HuffPost. "We are trying to better understand how it is that healthy humans are so good at quickly detecting the subtle and complicated signals they send each other with their facial expressions."

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“We are connected in ways we don’t consciously know, but which are absolutely essential for communication,” said psychologist and author Daniel Goleman at a March 14 talk on social intelligence sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Center for Public Leadership. “There is a subterranean emotional economy that’s part of any interaction.”

To illustrate his point, he described a scenario involving three 11-year-old boys in a New Haven, Conn., public school who are heading off to a soccer match. Two of the boys are accomplished athletes; the third is pudgy and not very coordinated. One of the jocks starts to taunt the pudgy kid, telling him that he is about to be embarrassed on the playing field. The tension mounts. But instead of responding to the jock’s put-downs with anger, the pudgy kid employs a “put-up strategy.” Laughing at his own lack of coordination, he compliments the jock’s athletic prowess. “Would you teach me how to dribble better?” he asks. The pudgy kid’s split-second calculations constitute a social alchemy, transforming a fistfight into an occasion of emotional bonding.

Experientially, we’ve always known how positive and negative emotions alike can rapidly spread through a group. But thanks to the discoveries that have taken place in the field of social neuroscience over the past decade, “we now realize why emotions are contagious,” said Goleman. “We understand the mechanisms” that enable emotions to spread.

From one-person to two-person psychology

Goleman’s 1995 bestseller “Emotional Intelligence” examines competencies within us as individuals — for example, the attributes of self-awareness and self-management — which enable us to read our own emotions, accurately assess our personalities, keep disruptive emotions under control, and be trustworthy, flexible, and optimistic. Weaving together a number of independent strands of research, including work that revealed how emotions are regulated by the brain, “Emotional Intelligence” makes the case that, although cognitive ability as measured by IQ is a strong predictor of which jobs or professions people may enter, emotional intelligence is what sets apart the star performers from the merely average in a given job or profession.

Since that book’s publication, many of the most interesting advances in neuroscience have had to do with two-person psychology. We now know that the brain is structurally designed for sociability: Whenever we interact with another person — whether in the boardroom or the bedroom, the classroom, the marketplace or the playground — a brain-to-brain connection, or neural bridge, is formed.

“A previously unknown class of neurons — mirror neurons — acts like a neural Wi-Fi system, monitoring everything the other person is saying and doing,” explained Goleman, who received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard. These neurons serve a synchronizing function, activating the same part of our brain that is being activated in the speaker’s brain. This is what keeps a conversation on track. For example, said Goleman, “In the buildup to a first kiss, these synchronizer cells are what tell you, ‘Now.’” But if you miss that signal, he continued, “and ask, ‘Is now OK?’ — you’ve blown it.”

A scientific illustration of the neural bridge that is established when two people relate can be found in the work of Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Carl Marci, who studied the psychotherapist-client interaction by measuring each person’s sweat response (a proxy measure for the person’s emotional responses) throughout a conversation. The videotape of the session depicts each person’s reading as a line that undulates in response to rising and falling emotions.

When patient and therapist aren’t connecting, “the two lines move like jittery birds, their ups and downs on private trajectories,” wrote Goleman in his 2006 book, “Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.” But when the patient and therapist are in sync, “the lines fly like birds in formation, a graceful ballet of coordinated movement. When two people feel rapport, the gliding lines reveal, their very physiology attunes.”

Loren Gary is the associate director of Leadership Development and Public Affairs for the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

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Unveiling the Mystery: Why Smiles are Contagious

Article 01 Jul 2023 1304 0

The act of smiling is universal, a silent language that communicates joy, warmth, and friendliness. But have you ever wondered why, when someone flashes a smile at you, you instinctively return the gesture? Why is it that smiles seem to be so "contagious"? This article delves deep into the psychological, neuroscientific, and sociological aspects of contagious smiles. If you're curious about the mysteries of human behavior and emotions, this read is for you.

Understanding Contagious Smiles

A contagious smile, also known as an "infectious grin", is a phenomenon where seeing someone else's smile triggers an automatic response to smile back. It's a natural human reaction that occurs regardless of whether we're consciously aware of it or not. This reflective joy we feel and the mirroring smiles we present are essential aspects of our social interactions, helping us to connect with others on an emotional level.

The Neuroscience Behind Contagious Smiles

The explanation behind why smiles are contagious involves complex neurological processes. The key players in this process are mirror neurons, a type of brain cell that responds equally when we perform an action or when we witness someone else perform the same action.

The discovery of mirror neurons in the early 1990s revolutionized our understanding of social cognition. These "empathy neurons" were first discovered in the premotor and parietal cortex of the macaque monkey. Further research found a similar system in humans, suggesting our brains might be wired for empathy.

Mirror neurons are activated when we see someone else smiling, causing us to replicate the smile. This automatic response is thought to be a mechanism for emotional contagion, an empathetic response where we experience the same feelings as those we observe in others.

In a landmark study, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that participants' brains responded similarly when they observed smiles and when they made the facial expressions themselves. This compelling evidence supported the role of mirror neurons in our ability to empathize and communicate nonverbally.

Psychological and Social Impact of Contagious Smiles

Contagious smiles also have significant psychological and social implications. The field of social psychology, which examines how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others, has a particular interest in emotional mimicry. Smiling is not merely an expression of joy; it is a potent social tool.

Smiles serve as a social bonding mechanism, fostering a sense of belonging and cooperation. The contagious nature of smiles contributes to group cohesion and synchrony, creating an emotional connection that transcends language barriers.

Moreover, contagious smiles can influence our mood. When we mirror a smile, our brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward. Consequently, the simple act of smiling can trigger positive feelings and improve our mood, supporting the adage that happiness is indeed contagious.

Cultural Influences on Contagious Smiles

Despite the universal nature of smiling, cultural influences can shape the frequency, context, and interpretation of smiles. Some cultures may emphasize stoicism and reserve, leading to less frequent public smiling. In contrast, others may place more value on openness and expressiveness, promoting more abundant and visible smiles.

Research comparing smiling behaviors across cultures has shown interesting variations. For example, a study published in the journal "Emotion" found that countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance, a cultural dimension indicating a society's tolerance for ambiguity, tended to smile less.

These cultural nuances underscore the complexity of interpreting emotional expressions and highlight the role of cultural competence in understanding social cues.

The Role of Empathy and Emotional Contagion in Smiles

Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is closely tied to the phenomenon of contagious smiles. This emotional resonance allows us to tune into others' emotional states, fostering deeper connections and social understanding.

The process of emotional contagion, the spread of feelings from one person to another, is integral to this empathetic response. It is a subconscious process that enables us to mirror the emotions we perceive in others, be it joy, sorrow, or fear. When we encounter someone smiling, this emotional contagion prompts us to reciprocate the smile, creating a positive feedback loop of shared happiness.

For instance, a mother and her baby exchange smiles, each reflecting the joy of the other, building an early emotional bond. Similarly, in a group setting, shared smiles can diffuse tension, promote a sense of camaraderie, and enhance collective wellbeing.

From the activation of mirror neurons to the psychological ripple effect in our social interactions, contagious smiles embody a fascinating interplay of neuroscientific, psychological, and cultural factors. These infectious grins serve not just as a reflection of our individual feelings but as a powerful tool that influences our social dynamics, emotional state, and even cross-cultural communication.

The next time you find yourself involuntarily returning a stranger's smile, remember - it's your brain's incredible capacity for empathy and social bonding at work, a testament to our fundamental interconnectedness. As British author and scientist Rupert Sheldrake once said, "We are much more socially connected than previously imagined. Contagious smiles and laughter might just be the glue that holds social groups together."

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February 11, 2016

Why smiles (and frowns) are contagious

by Cell Press

Smile! It makes everyone in the room feel better because they, consciously or unconsciously, are smiling with you. Growing evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry allows us to empathize with and even experience other people's feelings. If we can't mirror another person's face, it limits our ability to read and properly react to their expressions. A Review of this emotional mirroring appears February 11 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences .

In their paper, Paula Niedenthal and Adrienne Wood, social psychologists at the University of Wisconsin, and colleagues describe how people in social situations simulate others' facial expressions to create emotional responses in themselves. For example, if you're with a friend who looks sad, you might "try on" that sad face yourself—without realizing you're doing so. In "trying on" your friend's expression, it helps you to recognize what they're feeling by associating it with times in the past when you made that expression. Humans extract this emotional meaning from facial expressions in a matter of only a few hundred milliseconds.

"You reflect on your emotional feelings and then you generate some sort of recognition judgment, and the most important thing that results is that you take the appropriate action—you approach the person or you avoid the person," Niedenthal says. "Your own emotional reaction to the face changes your perception of how you see the face, in such a way that provides you more information about what it means."

A person's ability to recognize and "share" others' emotions can be inhibited when they can't mimic faces, even from something as simple as long-term pacifier use. This is a common complaint for people with central or peripheral motor diseases, like facial paralysis from a stroke or Bell's palsy—or even due to nerve damage from plastic surgery. Niedenthal notes that the same would not be true for people with congenital paralysis, because if you've never had the ability to mimic facial expressions , you will have developed compensatory ways of interpreting emotions.

People with social disorders associated with mimicry and/or emotion-recognition impairments, like autism, can experience similar challenges. "There are some symptoms in autism where lack of facial mimicry may in part be due to suppression of eye contact," Niedenthal says. In particular, "it may be overstimulating socially to engage in eye contact, but under certain conditions, if you encourage eye contact , the benefit is spontaneous or automatic facial mimicry."

Niedenthal next wants to explore what mechanism in the brain is functioning to help with facial expression recognition. A better understanding of the mechanism behind sensorimotor simulation, she says, will give us a better idea of how to treat related disorders.

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SiOWfa14 Science in Our World: Certainty and Cont

The course website and blog for the fall 2014 instance of penn state's sc200 course.

Is Smiling Contagious?

Have you ever caught yourself having a bad day and being in the worst mood, but then randomly feeling joy when talking to someone happy or someone that makes you laugh, putting a smile on your face? According to various studies, smiling is considered contagious. Smiling activates the release of neuropeptides , neurotransmitters dopamine , endorphins and serotonin , which decrease stress levels, relax the body, lower heart rate and blood pressure, and serve as an antidepressant/mood lifter.

When a person is smiling, they are viewed as “attractive, reliable, relaxed and sincere” (Sarah Stevenson). When a person sees another person smiling, his or her orbitofrontal cortex is activating, which processes sensory rewards. So when a person catches another person smiling, he or she feels rewarded, which is a good feeling.

A study that can test this and has been used in testing this is having a person walk by a certain number of people flashing them a smile and see if they smile back, then record this information. Then have a person walk by the same number of people not smiling and see how many people smile to this person. Usually what researchers find is that more people smile when they see someone smiling at them.

The cingulate cortex in a person’s brain is responsible for facial expressions, whether smiling when happy or mimicking another person’s smile unconsciously. In a study, people were told to frown at the pictures they were shown of others having different facial expressions. People viewing others would make a similar facial expression to what they were shown then made a conscious effort to frown afterwards. When people smile they release “feel good chemicals” (Sarah Stevenson), trigger the feeling of reward, and make themselves seem more attractive.

In another study, researchers “found that distinct happy and unhappy clusters significantly bigger than would be expected by chance” (Fox News).

Smiling makes people look and feel better. It is better for ones health to smile more because of the good chemicals it releases in ones brain. Next time you feel sad, surround yourself with people you know will put a smile on your face because uconsciously, smiles and emotions are contagious.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201206/there-s-magic-in-your-smile

http://www.theschulhofcenter.com/ask-the-experts-is-smiling-contagious/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/12/05/smile-study-says-happiness-is-contagious/

http://thespiritualcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/smiling-people.jpg

2 thoughts on “ Is Smiling Contagious? ”

In the first study you mentioned, where one person would smile and see if another person smiled back, I felt that there were many third confounding variables. For instance, an attractive girl that is smiling at an available male is gonna elicit more of a reaction then someone who may make them uncomfortable with there smile.

This is a great topic. I remember learning in my psychology class in high school that smiling was indeed contagious. We ran an experiment where you smiled and 30 random people and recorded whether or not the person smiled back. This experiment proved that indeed more than half of the people being smiled reciprocated the sentiment. My only suggestion here is to give us a little more information or maybe some more opinionated statements. It was a lot of quotes from your sources. Otherwise it was a great post!

Remember to always smile when feeling down!: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t9e7S8huhaQ/VBMVN6CbNGI/AAAAAAAAA14/02am46_jiJM/s1600/Big_smile.png

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MY PERSONAL COMPASS ESSAY: The Power of a Smile

• by Clifton B. Parker
• October 07, 2005

I believe in the power of a smile. A smile can be a subtle twitch of the jaw muscles or a large grin with both rows of teeth showing much like a third-grader on picture day.

Smiling is contagious. One of my goals every day is to smile, whether to myself or to someone else, even a complete stranger. I have a neighbor, an elderly Chinese woman, I have no clue as to what her name is, yet every day when I leave my house I see her on her morning walk and we smile to each other. I once was on the W-line bus on my way to campus and I smiled to a person sitting across from me. I later realized the person was in one of my classes and I introduced myself as the guy that smiled to her on the bus. This person and I have become the closest of friends. I recently had a friend pass away, Johnny Napier, and at his funeral his parents had put up his senior portrait from high school. This was no ordinary senior portrait, however; it was Johnny smiling with a set of joke teeth in his mouth. Johnny's parents knew it was the way Johnny would have wanted us to remember him because he had the power to bring a smile to the faces of his family and friends.

Smiling is what grounds me; it stabilizes and makes me feel more in control every day. It reminds me that, despite the fast pace of life, I must always remember to be happy and appreciate the little things in life. Smiling helps me overcome times of fear, anxiety and nervousness. Smiling helps me express to others my proudest moments. Smiling helps me convey love for others. Sometimes, when no words can be spoken, a smile is all that is needed to fill the air.

The smile is a universal sign of happiness. I believe it is the ultimate connection between all humankind. No matter how big or small, if a smile is genuine it creates an ineffable feeling in the atmosphere. I believe in the power of a smile to make the saddest of circumstances a little better. I believe in the power of a smile to enrich the happiest experiences in life. I believe in the power of a smile to transcend all barriers between individuals and to create special moments in life.

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Clifton B. Parker, Dateline, (530) 752-1932, [email protected]

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Smiles and Frowns Are Contagious for a Reason

By kate horowitz | feb 11, 2016.

You know what they say: when you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you . As it turns out, there’s a reason for that. A study published today in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences shows that mirroring other people’s facial expressions helps us connect. 

Scientists have known for some time now that our facial expressions can actually change our moods. A 2012 study found that people who held chopsticks in their mouths lengthwise, forcing their faces into fake smiles, felt happier and less stressed than people who maintained neutral expressions. 

We have a lot to gain from connecting with and understanding other humans; at times, that can mean the difference between life and death. As a result, we have evolved mechanisms that make those connections easier.

“Most people are face perception experts,” the authors write. “Faces, especially those expressing emotion, automatically capture our attention, and we extract the emotional meaning of those faces in a matter of a few hundred milliseconds, even subconsciously. Expressions of intense emotion, such as a wide-eyed expression of fear or a toothy grin, may have evolved to be highly distinguishable signals, easily recognizable even from a distance.”

This study found that humans subconsciously “try on” each other’s expressions in order to understand how others are feeling. The authors reviewed 15 recent journal articles on facial expression mimicking and the role of muscle movements in emotion. There, they found evidence for what they call the sensorimotor simulation model of emotion perception. In plain English, they’re suggesting that we move our facial muscles to mimic the face in front of us, and that this movement triggers the memory of associated emotions, which triggers real emotion in the moment.

An example: You’re used to frowning when we feel sad or angry. If you’re sitting in a coffee shop with your friend and she is frowning, even a little bit, you might frown too, without even realizing it. As your brain recognizes the frown on your face, it calls up examples of frowning in your own life, and the feelings that went along with them. You begin to feel just a little bummed. Because this is how your friend is feeling, it helps you connect and relate to her. Voila: social success.

The authors note that this skill is dependent on having a clear view of someone else’s face and being able to replicate their expression. Many people with autism avoid making eye contact, which may contribute to their difficulty recognizing others’ emotions. People who have had strokes or experienced Bell’s palsy may have trouble moving their facial muscles, which limits how much they can mimic the faces in front of them. People who were born with facial paralysis, on the other hand, have often developed other ways to tap into that same empathy.

For their next project, the researchers intend to study how humans perceive and identify other people’s facial expressions.

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Why smiles (and frowns) are contagious

image: This infographic explains the research behind how you know what people are feeling just by looking at their faces. view more 

Credit: Adrienne Wood

Smile! It makes everyone in the room feel better because they, consciously or unconsciously, are smiling with you. Growing evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry allows us to empathize with and even experience other people's feelings. If we can't mirror another person's face, it limits our ability to read and properly react to their expressions. A Review of this emotional mirroring appears February 11 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences .

In their paper, Paula Niedenthal and Adrienne Wood, social psychologists at the University of Wisconsin, and colleagues describe how people in social situations simulate others' facial expressions to create emotional responses in themselves. For example, if you're with a friend who looks sad, you might "try on" that sad face yourself--without realizing you're doing so. In "trying on" your friend's expression, it helps you to recognize what they're feeling by associating it with times in the past when you made that expression. Humans extract this emotional meaning from facial expressions in a matter of only a few hundred milliseconds.

"You reflect on your emotional feelings and then you generate some sort of recognition judgment, and the most important thing that results is that you take the appropriate action--you approach the person or you avoid the person," Niedenthal says. "Your own emotional reaction to the face changes your perception of how you see the face, in such a way that provides you more information about what it means."

A person's ability to recognize and "share" others' emotions can be inhibited when they can't mimic faces, even from something as simple as long-term pacifier use. This is a common complaint for people with central or peripheral motor diseases, like facial paralysis from a stroke or Bell's palsy--or even due to nerve damage from plastic surgery. Niedenthal notes that the same would not be true for people with congenital paralysis, because if you've never had the ability to mimic facial expressions, you will have developed compensatory ways of interpreting emotions.

People with social disorders associated with mimicry and/or emotion-recognition impairments, like autism, can experience similar challenges. "There are some symptoms in autism where lack of facial mimicry may in part be due to suppression of eye contact," Niedenthal says. In particular, "it may be overstimulating socially to engage in eye contact, but under certain conditions, if you encourage eye contact, the benefit is spontaneous or automatic facial mimicry."

Niedenthal next wants to explore what mechanism in the brain is functioning to help with facial expression recognition. A better understanding of the mechanism behind sensorimotor simulation, she says, will give us a better idea of how to treat related disorders.

The researchers are supported by the National Science Foundation.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences , Wood et al.: "Fashioning the Face: Sensorimotor Simulation Contributes to Facial Expression Recognition" http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.12.010

Trends in Cognitive Sciences ( @TrendsCognSci ), published by Cell Press, is a monthly review journal that brings together research in psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and neuroscience. It provides a platform for the interaction of these disciplines and the evolution of cognitive science as an independent field of study. For more information, please visit http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences . To receive Cell Press media alerts, please contact [email protected] .

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

10.1016/j.tics.2015.12.010

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Why are smiles contagious? An fMRI study of the interaction between perception of facial affect and facial movements

Affiliation.

• 1 Department of Neuroradiology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. [email protected]
• PMID: 12738341
• DOI: 10.1016/s0925-4927(03)00006-4

In human communication there is often a close relationship between the perception of an emotionally expressive face and the facial response of the viewer himself. Whereas perception and generation of facial expressions have been studied separately with functional imaging methods, no studies exist on their interaction. We combined the presentation of emotionally expressive faces with the instruction to react with facial movements predetermined and assigned. fMRI was used in an event related design to examine healthy subjects while they regarded happy, sad, or neutral faces and were instructed to simultaneously move the corners of their mouths either (a). upwards or (b). downwards, or (c). to refrain from movement. The subjects' facial movements were recorded with an MR-compatible video camera. Movement latencies were shortened in congruent situations (e.g. the presentation of a happy face and combined with upward movements) and delayed in non-congruent situations. Dissonant more than congruent stimuli activated the inferior prefrontal cortex and the somatomotor cortex bilaterally. The congruent condition, in particular when seeing a happy face, activated the medial basotemporal lobes (hippocampus, amygdala, parahippocampal region). We hypothesize that this region facilitates congruent facial movements when an emotionally expressive face is perceived and that it is part of a system for non-volitional emotional facial movements.

Publication types

• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
• Face / anatomy & histology*
• Facial Expression*
• Facial Muscles / blood supply*
• Facial Muscles / physiology*
• Hemodynamics
• Imitative Behavior*
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging*
• Movement / physiology*
• Nonverbal Communication
• Social Behavior*
• Visual Perception*

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Smiles are contagious.

Smile, you’re on camera. Well, not really, but just pretend like you are, because  the simple act of smiling can do you and everyone around you a lot of good .

Smiles that engage your eye and mouth muscles (called Duchenne smiles) have the most positive impact on your outlook and physical health. These types of smiles can help ease tension, relieve anxiety, lower your heart rate, and actually make you  feel  happy.

And  research shows  that even fake smiles can improve mood by tapping into the positive memories associated with the particular facial muscular action. So, the next time your in-laws ask you about your shiny, new mortgage, remember to smile; there’s a chance your subconscious mind will whisk you off to Disneyland.

But can smiles really be contagious?  Growing evidence  shows that facial mimicry is a natural human instinct that allows us to empathize with the feelings of others. If you’re talking with a friend that looks sad, you may mirror that facial expression subconsciously in order to better recognize or understand that feeling. A smile can have the same effect.

Use Destress Monday as an opportunity to send a smile to everyone in your social network. Our adorable “Smiles are Contagious” GIF will put a grin on even the sourest of faces.

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