It can brighten your day, it can diffuse tension, and it can bring people together; so what is a smile? The dictionary definition is: “A smile is a facial expression formed by flexing those muscles most notably near both ends of the mouth;” but that doesn’t really help, does it? It’s a bit like saying Michelangelo was the decorator who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
There are two types of smile: genuine and fake. The genuine smile is spontaneous (you see someone you care about, something makes you suddenly happy, etc) and you smile involuntarily, you don’t think about it. We can see this in people because the far more difficult to control muscles around the eyes come into play. This is linked to our limbic system; our basic mammalian system that bypasses consciousness (ie we don’t choose these actions) and so it is far more natural, like our ‘fight or flight’ response.
Once we think about it, ie when consciousness comes into play, then it is far more controlled. The muscles around the eyes are not utilized and so the ‘smile’ looks incomplete and so not genuine. You can notice the difference between the natural smile of joy exhibited when a parent sees their child and the one plastered on when you order your burger; very different aren’t they?
So can you spot a fake smile? Click the link below and you will be able to test out how well you can detect the real from the fake. And remember don’t look only at the mouth because, as they say, the eyes have it!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/
Follow us on Twitter