What “Lies” Behind the Smile Why do we smile? What is the purpose of it? At a first glance, these would appear to be very simple questions. Questions that you could answer almost immediately. Some would say, “Because we can.” or “To make other people happy.” In the essay Why Women Smile, Amy Cunningham defies the status-quo on this topic by bringing up the following points: women not only smile because we are happy or excited but also out of social obligation, we smile out of fear, nervousness, or feeling uncomfortable, and lastly that there are honest to goodness true smiles. What truly “lies” behind the smile is something that is more nuanced than people expect. Something so simple as a smile is way more complex than what actually meets the eye. In America’s culture we view smiling as a positive or friendly feeling, but in many other cultures it is actually the opposite. We view smiling as a form of respect and use it as a tool to help us either build or to repair relationships. One example of a “non-smiling” culture is Japan. In Japanese culture, they place extreme value on humility and so they tend to suppress their emotions. This is one of there ways that they use to help build relationships with people. Another “non-smiling” country is Russia. In Russia, smiling is reserved for close friends and so smiling at strangers is viewed as being insincere. (No wonder why we had so many communication issues in the cold war.) Therefore, the question at hand is why is smiling
Results of the experiment overwhelmingly supported the hypothesis. Particularly in the measurements of smiling. Male-female dyads showed extraordinarily higher frequencies of smiling during conversation than the other dyads. Both same gender dyads showed relatively marginal to moderate frequencies for smiling. Eye contact frequencies were also higher for male-female dyads, though not as overwhelmingly as smiling. In contrast, both same gender dyads showed relatively low frequencies for eye contact.
The Facial Feedback Hypothesis is the theory that if you portray an emotion on your face, such as a smile, that the following emotion is likely to occur internally (Nevid, 2015). For example If I were to have a grumpy or sad looking face my emotional state will be reflected by becoming angry, sad, or another emotion associated with the facial expression. Although, studies have shown that practicing smiling several times a day may help lift your spirits, this theory is not guaranteed to work every time (Nevid, 2015).
Reading Response to “Looking at Women” written by Scott Russell Sanders is an article about Sanders
Facial Expression: The facial expression such as happiness, sadness, anger and fear helps a lot in conveying a message. These facial expressions are similar all over the world but non- verbal communication and behaviour varies hugely between the cultures in the world.Since the look on a person’s face is noticed , before we hear ,facial expression contributes a lot in a successfully non-verbal communication .
This idea is portrayed very often in the scene from ‘Up’. One specific example is seen when the male character, Carl, is watching his wife, Ellie, paint their mailbox. He is staring at her intently with a grin on his face, his eyes appearing to be soft. One could interpret this as an expression of interest and affection – Ellie clearly does, as she looks up at him in return and smiles. Another example occurs when Ellie visits Carl in the hospital after he has broken his leg. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, with a slight smirk on her face. This is one example where there exists an issue of intentionality, as often is present when it comes to nonverbal communication (Hall, Carter, & Horgan, 2000). An observer who is unaware of the couple’s relationship and the circumstances surrounding the situation may mistake Ellie’s glance as a sign of annoyance, however those with more knowledge on the setting can realize that the smirk expresses the thought “Well, we both know what this means...”. Therefore, this particular scene does an excellent job of demonstrating the ambiguity and complexity of countenance in nonverbal communication.
To smile means to show how much happiness a person has through a motion from their mouths. When a person smiles they usually experiencing something very pleasurable and are showing a more intense feeling of joy. When a person grins they are showing a smaller level of joy. Also when a person grins they tend to be unnoticeable, since the motions of a grin are not very visible.
A nation's success and standard of living is determined by its economic growth, which is measured by percentage in real GDP. Capitalism is an economic system that yields strong incentives for rapid increases in output of commodities. The most advanced capitalist economies have been more successful in raising productivity, as a result of their low unemployment rates and ability to adjust to new and improving economies. Developed countries in general, contain a lot of natural resources, which can be used as income. As stated in Sarah Ahmed’s book “Why Happiness, Why Now?”, developing countries are shown to be happier than undeveloped ones (3). Would this supposed happiness be due to the progression of their country? A country’s growth and advancement
The overall results collected by 257 students for each of the expression is roughly 2.8 for frown, 3.2 for neutral, and 3.9 for smile, each data at a statistically significant p-value of 0.001. This result disproves the norm of reciprocity theory in the hypothesis since a frown received a response closer to neutral.
In the article, Cunningham brings up many compelling points that help drive her argument on the reasons as to why women smile. One of the main points she touches on is the biological aspect of it. She relates it to monkeys and how they use a smile in their environment to show that they are not going to cause harm to anyone around them and that they are passive. This helps
In her Novel, Southland, 2003, Nina Revoyr captures the struggles that women, especially those of the Asian American descent, have navigated through history. The novel provides interesting material on many fronts including aspects such as sexuality, multiracial and multigenerational family saga. The book is based upon three women characters with the main protagonist being a young Japanese American woman by the name of Jackie Ishida - a 25 year old law student in her last semester, her aunt Lois and her lesbian lover Laura, an African American woman. These three women in the book represent different aspects of women 's struggles and the issues they have to confront in their day to day living.
There was a seven year old child named Kiki who was found and dug out of rubble in Haiti after being stuck buried in there for 7 days. At first he was scared to leave the hole but when he got out he wasn't scared anymore, he didn't cry, he did quite the opposite in fact he stretched out his arms like a star and had a huge smile on his face. All the people around couldn't help but smile aswell because Kiki’s smile was infectious! Now a show of hands how many times a day you think that you smile? 4000? 20? 150? 60? On average a child smiles approximately 400 times per day but adults only smile 20 times per day teens like us are anywhere within the middle because of the fluctuating hormones. Out of the thousands of smiles we have shared by this
In the article, “Why Women Smile,” Cunningham conveys how she believes smiles to be, “not the small and innocuous things they appear to be…” (172). Cunningham analyzes the various reasonings behind the smiling women throughout our history and the world. For example, she reports that the Japanese smile is often conveyed to hide sadness. This smile was often expressed in their history if a wife's husband was a samurai who died in battle. She notes that, “Women are expected to smile no matter where they line up on the social, cultural, or economic ladder” (174). Cunningham goes into further detail on the trademarked American smile. She discovers that social pressures on women to continually smile began with the advertising of smiling females. Eventually, this lead the smiling woman
One of my goals for this semester is to try to smile more during my sessions to show warmth. I think by showing warmth it will hopefully allow my client to open up more and they will feel more comfortable talking and sharing with me. I think by smiling it shows warmth, and it also shows the client that I want to be there and that I am engaged with what they have to say. My method of evaluation for this goal will be to review all my recorded sessions for the semester and watch my facial expressions regarding smiling and if I appear warm. By watching the recordings I will also be able to determine if my smile is portrayed as genuine or fake. I will also evaluate my goal by asking for feedback from peers, and ask them if they thought my facial
In “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy,” Emily Esfahani Smith writes about the conflict between Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Happiness” and the culture today, which focuses on happiness in life rather than meaning. She introduces Viktor Frankl as a star medical and psychology student who survived the Holocaust in 1942. While Frankl was kept hostage in his camp, he was forced to find the good in life in order to survive. After being liberated, Frankl recorded his experience and what he learned in nine days, creating a best-seller in the United States. Smith explains that even though it has been concluded that Americans’ happiness is at an all-time high, the Center for Disease Control says that almost fifty percent of Americans have not found a purpose in life. Smith tells that bad mental health, self-esteem, and depression are less likely to be found in those who have found a pleasurable meaning in life. Happiness is associated with being a “taker”, while having a meaning life is associated with being a “giver” according to Smith. The downside to having a purpose for one’s life is the fact that he or she is usually more unhappy due to stress and worry than those who only strive for happiness, Smith explains. A study in 2011 proved that if someone has a negative circumstance occur in his or her lifetime, that event will give him or her more of a drive to find meaning in life rather than happiness. Smith concluded by linking these other sources with Frankl’s
One may ask the history of the smile. Wilson (2012) explained some biologists believe that the smile originated millions of years ago as a sign of fear; monkeys and apes, in an attempt to show predators that they were harmless – apparently the barely clenched teeth of this “fear grin” were meant to communicate this harmlessness