Smiling Can Actually Make People Happier, Study Finds
Researchers of a new study find that the simple act (1)______ smiling can actually make a person happier.
Evidently, nearly 50 years of data shows facial expressions can affect an individual’s emotions or feelings.
Emotional Debate
For over 100 years, psychologists have been debating whether facial expressions can affect emotions. The
argument became even more pronounced (2)______ 2016 after 17 teams of scientists failed to replicate a
popular experiment that would supposedly show that smiling can actually make people happier.
While there are some studies that do not show a relationship (3)______facial expressions and emotional
feelings, the researchers of the new study believe that they can’t focus on the data from just one. As such,
they scoured data from 138 studies, which tested over 11,000 participants (4)_____ all over the world.
“But we can’t focus on the results of any one study. Psychologists have been testing this idea since the early
1970s, so we wanted to look at all the evidence,” said lead researcher Nicholas Coles, PhD.
Facial Expressions Affect People's Emotions
Based on the team’s meta-analysis, facial expressions do, in fact, have a small impact on emotions. For
instance, a person who smiles will feel happier, a person who scowls will feel angrier, and a person who
frowns will feel sadder. While the effects aren’t very powerful or long-lasting, it is significant enough to show a
correlation.
According to researchers, their findings bring us closer to understanding how human emotions work and how
the mind and body work together to shape how we experience emotions. That said, they do note that they are
not saying that people can just smile their way to happiness, especially when it comes to mental health
conditions such as depression.
The study is published in Psychological Bulletin.
Source: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/241396/20190413/smiling-can-actually-make-peoplehappier-study-finds.htm(adapted)Access: April 13th, 2019
