Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine Epsiloon, reveals to us today the unsuspected powers of the smile and urges us to smile. And not just because it’s nice for other people.
franceinfo: Does smiling make us happier?
Mathilde Fontez: Yes, specialists call this phenomenon “facial feedback”. This is a scientific hypothesis that has existed for a long time: it is the idea that smiling has a rebound effect: we smile because we are happy, happy. And that smile, once on our face, would accentuate our happiness.
And it is this rebound of the smile that researchers have just proven…
The study is incredibly comprehensive. The researchers, an American team, did not skimp. They subjected nearly 4,000 people to tests, in 19 countries, to try to prove or refute this facial feedback effect. It must be said that until then, the experiments that had been carried out gave contradictory results, or difficult to interpret.
There had been tests where volunteers were asked to hold pens between their teeth to mimic a smile – but is it really a smile. Others where volunteers were told to smile – but weren’t we influencing their emotions by doing that.
In short, the researchers developed a test that was as neutral as possible: the volunteers did not know – of course – what the study in which they were participating was about. They weren’t told to smile. They just had to mime the expressions presented to them on images, and answer a questionnaire on their emotions.
And those who smiled turned out to be happier?
That’s it: there is no longer any possible doubt: smiling, it reinforces our feeling of happiness. And it even participates in initiating it! So the effect is weak, but sufficient all the same, to support an old thesis on this type of feedback: our gestures our postures would be components in their own right of our nervous system. What matters to shape our emotions is not only what we see, what we feel, what we understand, but also how our body moves.
Do you have to take smile cures to be happier?
It’s not that far from the truth. Smiling could help better manage stress, distress, even depression, according to researchers. This study validates practices that are already sometimes recommended by psychologists: smile every morning in front of your mirror for 5 minutes.