Smile! (Bet You Did Just Reading the Word)

Smiles are not only catching, the mere suggestion of them can get you grinning.

A study published in the journal Psychological Science revealed that people have different facial reactions to the words "smile" and "cry" or "funny" and "frustrating." (Read the study's abstract here.)

As volunteers read the words, Dutch researchers measured the reaction in the muscle which controls smiles (it's called the "zygomatic muscle") and the muscle that controls frowns (the "corrugator supercilii").

When volunteers read the verb "to laugh" on a computer screen, the smile muscle got fired up. It's harder to induce a frown: Just reading the word prompted no response from the frown muscles. For the record, adjectives like "funny" or "frustrating" also provoked little response from either muscle when compared to the verbs.

In another experiment from the same researchers — also designed to measure how language influence emotion — volunteers were asked to watch a series of cartoons. Subliminally they were shown emotion verbs and adjectives after each one. Just to complicate things, half the volunteers had to hold a pen with their lips as smile-prevention. All the group then had to rate how funny they thought the cartoons were.

The results: Even when words like "smile" were received subliminally, volunteers still got the message. Participants in the study who saw verbs for happy actions found the cartoons funnier than those who got the "frown" words. As for the whole pen-holding part: It seems you can physically block a smile — and a feeling. Volunteers with the pen in their mouths, but who saw the subliminal smile messages, didn’t move a muscle and also didn’t rate the cartoons quite as funny.

So put that pen down and smile already!