Smiling is Not Always Driven by Happiness

Smiling does not always signify that you are happy, finds a new study.

Smiling does not always symbolize happiness, reports a new study. The findings of the study are published in The Journal of the ACM.

It is widely believed that smiling means a person is happy, and it usually occurs when they are engaging with another person or group of people. However, a new study led by body language expert Dr. Harry Witchel, Discipline Leader in Physiology at BSMS, shows this is not always the case.

Respect is the Key to Happiness, Not Bank Balance
According to a new research, a person’s overall happiness is not based on his bank balance but on the degree of respect and admiration he commands in the society.

‘The emotion that is linked to smiling is subjective engagement, which acts as a social fuel rather than happiness or frustration. ’

Dr. Witchel claims that the way people often behave during one-to-one Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) is as if they were socially engaged.

His research involved asking 44 participants aged 18-35 to play a geography quiz game consisting of nine difficult questions so that they often got the answer wrong.

Seated participants interacted with a computer alone in a room while their faces were video recorded.

The Science of Happiness
Happiness is pleasure that can aptly be described as a state of content, aided by the absence of gross desire.

After the quiz, the participants were asked to rate their subjective experience using a range of 12 emotions including 'bored,' 'interested' and 'frustrated.'

Meanwhile, their spontaneous facial expressions were then computer analyzed frame by frame to judge how much they were smiling based on a scale of between 0 to 1.

Being Happy Can Make Older People Live Longer
Smile always, staying happy can make older people live longer. Even a small bundle of joy may be beneficial to older people's longevity.

Dr. Witchel said: "According to some researchers, a genuine smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness or amusement.

"However, Behavioural Ecology Theory suggests that all smiles are tools used in social interactions; that theory claims that cheerfulness is neither necessary nor sufficient for smiling.

�Happy Genes� Anyone?
Is happiness genetic? The happiness genes can be inherited by the children from their parents.

"Our study showed that in these Human-Computer Interaction experiments, smiling is not driven by happiness; it is associated with subjective engagement, which acts as a social fuel for smiling, even when socializing with a computer on your own."

Statistically, the emotion that was most associated with smiling was 'engagement' rather than 'happiness' or 'frustration.'

The frame by frame smile analysis broke down each of the nine questions into a question and answer period.

Participants did not tend to smile during the period when they were trying to figure out the answers.

However, they did smile right after the computer game informed them if their answer was correct or wrong, and surprisingly, participants smiled more often when they got the answer wrong.

Dr. Witchel added: "During these computerized quizzes, smiling was radically enhanced just after answering questions incorrectly. This behavior could be explained by self-ratings of engagement, rather than by ratings of happiness or frustration."

Source-Eurekalert