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October 26, 2012

Facial Feedback: World smiles with you!

It's very well said that if you smile in then the whole world smiles with you. We all experience that smiling (irrespective of a genuine or fake smile) faces are more liked that neutral, sad or angry faces because smiling makes us feel better at the very core of our existence.

Smiling secretes a hormone called as Endorphin inside our brains that generates happy feelings and also reduces level of stress hormone Cortisol and Epinephrine (secretion from Adrenaline gland). Hence smiling at each other generates a positive feedback loop.

According to Sir Charles Darwin and psychologist William James’s Facial Feedback theory, we can generate same emotional effect through volunteer movements of facial muscles. As like unconsciously or involuntarily expressions induce feedback in minds of other people, volunteer facial expressions and gestures too can achieve same at a certain degree.

Smile enhances your face value.

Once you generate expressions on your face consciously, others are most likely to react, respond or reciprocate in the similar way unconsciously. Giving a facial feedback happens quite automatically most of the time, outside our conscious control, all the time.

This theory applies for smiling too and we widely witness it. More you smile at people in appropriate situations; more often you would get similar feedback from them. If you cannot portray a genuine smile, start smiling politely (in other words - faking a smile).

Feedback from others in form of smiles, easiness, interest, or comfort displays would lead to positive feelings in your mind. After entering into a loop of initiation and feedback, your mental state starts to change. Sooner or later, you would start to portray a genuine smile, almost unconsciously.

Chinese Air hostesses are trained
to grin with the help of a stick.

It’s an innate survival mechanism we all have that allows us to connect with each at deeper psychological levels and feel our existence (more meaningful) by seeking feedback from others. We can find trails of feedback principle in many practical and conceptual aspects of our daily lives.

Facial feedback to smile is very natural and it's widely used in commercials. It's not at all surprising that we find faces in various entities around us or also we draw faces on different types of surfaces.

Surprisingly, a smile is the most commercially capitalized aspect of the overall body language.

Related Articles:
1) Why we copy each other's body language? 2) Secret behind imitation 3) Face to Face 4) Social Footsteps 5) Botox hampers emotional awareness 6) Recognizing emotional expressions: Scientific viewpoints 7) Chicken and Egg Paradox

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