Benefits of Smile
1. Get others to trust you
In a world where everyone is out for themselves, who should we trust? One signal that suggests we are trustworthy is a smile. Genuine smiles send a message that other people can trust and cooperate with us. People who smile are rated higher in both generosity and extraversion and when people share with each other they tend to display genuine smiles .
Economists even consider that smiles have a value. In one study by participants were more likely to trust another person if they were smiling. This study found that a smile increased people’s willingness to trust by about 10%.
2. Smile for leniency
When people do bad things they often smile when they are caught. Is this to their benefit?
According to a study conducted, it can be. We treat people who’ve broken the rules with more leniency if they smile afterwards. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a false smile, a miserable smile or a real felt smile, they all work to make us want to give the transgressor a break.
This seems to work because we find people who smile after breaking the rules more trustworthy than those who don’t.
3. Recover from social slip-ups
Did you forget to buy your partner an anniversary present? Has an important client’s name slipped your mind? Have you accidentally kicked a small child? If you’ve tripped on a social banana, embarrassment is your go-to emotion.
The function of embarrassment is to get us out of tight social spots. The embarrassed smiles we display involve looking down and sometimes we emit a silly little laugh. This is designed to elicit fellow-feeling from other people so they think less of the slip and forgive us more quickly.
So the embarrassed smile helps us get out of jail free(ish). Once again, the power of a smile.
4. Because otherwise I’ll feel bad
Sometimes we smile both because it’s polite and so that we can avoid feeling bad afterwards. Like when someone enthuses about how they saved a small amount of money with a coupon they found down
In a world where everyone is out for themselves, who should we trust? One signal that suggests we are trustworthy is a smile. Genuine smiles send a message that other people can trust and cooperate with us. People who smile are rated higher in both generosity and extraversion and when people share with each other they tend to display genuine smiles .
Economists even consider that smiles have a value. In one study by participants were more likely to trust another person if they were smiling. This study found that a smile increased people’s willingness to trust by about 10%.
2. Smile for leniency
When people do bad things they often smile when they are caught. Is this to their benefit?
According to a study conducted, it can be. We treat people who’ve broken the rules with more leniency if they smile afterwards. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a false smile, a miserable smile or a real felt smile, they all work to make us want to give the transgressor a break.
This seems to work because we find people who smile after breaking the rules more trustworthy than those who don’t.
3. Recover from social slip-ups
Did you forget to buy your partner an anniversary present? Has an important client’s name slipped your mind? Have you accidentally kicked a small child? If you’ve tripped on a social banana, embarrassment is your go-to emotion.
The function of embarrassment is to get us out of tight social spots. The embarrassed smiles we display involve looking down and sometimes we emit a silly little laugh. This is designed to elicit fellow-feeling from other people so they think less of the slip and forgive us more quickly.
So the embarrassed smile helps us get out of jail free(ish). Once again, the power of a smile.
4. Because otherwise I’ll feel bad
Sometimes we smile both because it’s polite and so that we can avoid feeling bad afterwards. Like when someone enthuses about how they saved a small amount of money with a coupon they found down