Usage: Though we may show a polite grin or camera smile at will, the
zygomatic or heartfelt smile is hard to produce on demand. While the former cue
may be consciously manipulated (and is subject to deception), the latter is controlled by emotion. Thus,
the zygomatic smile is a more accurate reflection of
mood.
Anatomy. Lip corners curl upward through contraction of
zygomaticus muscles; crow's-feet show when the zygomaticus muscles are
strongly contracted, and/or when orbicularis oculi muscles contract. In
the polite (i.e., intentional, weak, or "false") smile, lip corners stretch
sideward through contraction of risorius muscles, with little upward
curl and no visible crow's-feet.
Evolution. The smile-face may be traced to the primate's grimace or
fear grin. The submissive grin, used to show "I am afraid," came to suggest that
"I am harmless--and therefore friendly--as well" (Morris 1994). The link between
smiling and humor, love, and joy has yet to be explained.
Feedback
smile. Smiling itself produces a weak feeling of happiness. The facial
feedback hypothesis proposes that ". . . involuntary facial movements
provide sufficient peripheral information to drive emotional experience"
(Bernstein et al. 2000). According to Davis and Palladino (2000), ". . .
feedback from facial expression [e.g., smiling or frowning] affects emotional
expression and behavior." In one study, e.g., participants were instructed to
hold a pencil in their mouths, either between their lips or between their teeth.
The latter, who were able to smile, rated cartoons funnier than did the former,
who could not smile (Davis and Palladino 2000).
Media. 1. "So, there's the 1984 study that
found that ABC News anchor Peter Jennings was more likely to smile on camera
when talking about Ronald Reagan than Walter Mondale, and that in the same year
the people who watched ABC News voted for Reagan in greater proportions than the
people who watched other network-news shows" (Lacayo 2000:90). 2. "Who
has the most coveted smile in Hollywood? 'Twenty years ago, everyone wanted a
smile like Farrah Fawcett's,' says Dr. Irving Smigel, a New York dentist who
created the Supersmile product line . . . and has worked on Calvin Klein and
Johnny Depp. 'Now most of my patients mention Julia Roberts. Her mouth is very
feminine'" (Comita 2000:80).
Supermarket mandatory smile. In the
late 1990s, Safeway, the second largest supermarket chain in the U.S.,
instructed its store employees to smile and greet customers with direct eye
contact. In 1998, USA Today ("Safeway's Mandatory Smiles Pose Danger,
Workers Say") reported that 12 female employees had filed grievances over the
chain's smile-and-eye-contact policy, after numerous male customers reportedly
had propositioned them for dates. Commenting on the grievances, a Safeway
official stated, "We don't see it [the males' sexual overtures] as a direct
result of our initiative."
Salesmanship. "You don't have to smile
constantly to show you are enjoying yourself. Smile at the peaks" (Delmar
1984:41).
Smiley face. The yellow "smiley face," a popular graphic
symbol designed by commercial artist Harvey Ball in the early 1960s, has become
a universal sign of happiness. Its color is associated with the brightness of
the sun (see COLOR CUE). According to his son, Charlie Ball, Harvey
". . . understood the power of it (the smiley face) and was enormously proud of
it [even though others, rather than Ball, profited financially from the design].
He left this world with no apologies and no regrets, happy to have this as his
legacy" (Woo 2001:A6). Designed to enhance the Worcester, Mass.-based State
Mutual Life Assurance company's "friendship campaign," to bolster employee
morale, the smiley face took Ball about 10 minutes to complete (Woo 2001).
"Fearing that a grumpy employee would turn the smile upside down into a frown,
he [Ball] added the eyes" (Woo 2001:A6; see ISOTYPE).
RESEARCH REPORTS: 1. Regarding the
fake smile, "Dr [Guillaume-Benjamin] Duchenne [de Boulogne] attributes the
falseness of the expression altogether to the orbicular muscles of the lower
eyelids not being sufficiently contracted" (Darwin 1872:202).
2. The smiling play-face is seen "when a child is
about to be chased by another and stands slightly crouched, side-on to the
chaser and looking at it with this 'mischievous' expression, an open-mouthed
smile with the teeth covered, which morphologically resembles the 'play-face' of
Macaca and Pan" (Blurton Jones 1967:358). 3.
"But one sometimes feels that human smiles are also partly 'fear' motivated"
(Blurton Jones 1967:364). 4. "The comparative data show that
there is a similarity in form between the smiling response and the silent
bared-teeth face" (Van Hooff 1967:60). 5. Brannigan and Humphries (1969)
identified the "simple smile," the "broad smile," and the "upper smile" (the
latter two are zygomatic smiles). 6. "Exogenous" smiling, not
present at birth, begins at about three weeks as an unpredictable, fleeting
response to audio, visual, or tactile stimuli; "social" smiling (e.g., to faces)
becomes predictable by 8-to-12 weeks (Spitz, Emde and Metcalf 1973). 7.
By the age of four, boys ". . . are reserving the 'sociable' upper smile [in
which the lips are parted to reveal the top teeth] for other boys almost
exclusively. The girls, while not using the upper smile as exclusively as do the
boys, appear, by age 4, to use this smile rarely with boys" (Cheyne 1976:823).
8. "The data indicated that the infants looked at the joy expression
significantly more than at either the anger or neutral expressions" (LaBarbera
et al. 1976:535). 9. "My research suggests that with enjoyment
the zygomaticus major muscle is the principal muscle in the lower face,
and may be the only active muscle in the lower face" (Ekman 1998:201).
10. ". . . five-month-old infants show the eye-muscle smile
when the mother approaches, but a smile without the eye muscle when approached
by a stranger" (Ekman 1998:203).
Neuro-notes. The zygomatic smile is controlled ". . . from the anterior cingulate region, from other limbic cortices (in the medial temporal lobe), and from the basal ganglia" (Damasio 1994:140-41). "We cannot mimic easily what the anterior cingulate can achieve effortlessly" (Damasio 1994:141-42).
See also AUTISM (E-Commentary I &
II), FACIAL
EXPRESSION, LAUGH, LIPS.
Read the Boston Globe Magazine
feature, "Grin and Bare it."
Copyright 1998 - 2010 (David B.
Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)
Photo of "Smile, Surfacing" (Fiesta Mexicana, Spokane, Washington, USA) by Doreen K. Givens (copyright 2007)