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The Science Behind Smile

In: English and Literature

Submitted By Menas
Words 1207
Pages 5
Measures of Happiness and the Secret behind Smile

In his article, “The Science behind the Smile”, Daniel Gilbert focuses on the various aspects, reasons and measures of happiness. Happiness, as he explains has now become a part of science which was previously studied only by psychologists. Giving it a scientific view, an economist studies happiness to coincide it with the theory of ‘wants’. When he gets to know the ‘wants’, he’ll be able to assume the demand which in turn will also help him in assuming the supply and overall managing of microeconomics and macroeconomics. Then there are neuroscientists studying happiness from a medical attitude, helping themselves to come up with conclusions; but how every discipline measures happiness varies. Happiness might be measured on a rating scale or any modern technology such as electromyography that measures the activity of smile muscles in the face. But I personally think this kind of technology might end up in biased results. Smiling doesn’t always reflect happiness; it might be forcefully done, people might be forced to smile because it is part of their daily work to be gracious and pleasant, so we can’t base our results on one such factor as smile muscles rather there should be more than one factor taken into consideration while measuring happiness. Studies also report how forceful smiling led employees to distress and eventually quitting work.
A research paper was published in the Academy of Management Journal, in which a sample of bus drivers were studied for their fake emotions and the after effects of these emotions. As Joanna (2009) discusses, ‘Surface acting’ and ‘Deep Acting’ were the two variables of study. A research found that when these bus drivers were forced to smile and suppress the negative thoughts, they ended up worsening their moods and quitting from work. On the other hand when the

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