How a Smile Tricks the Brain
The ability to decode smiles appears to be hardwired into the brain as an aid to survival. Because smiling is essentially a submission signal, ancestral men and women needed to be able to recognise whether an approaching stranger was friendly or aggressive, and those who failed to do this perished.
The Definitive Book of Body Language
In over 30 years of studying the sales and negotiating process we have found that smiling at the appropriate time, such as during the opening stages of a negotiating situation where people are sizing each other up, produces a positive response on both sides of the table that gives more successful outcomes and higher sales ratios.
Do you recognise this actor?
When you look at the above photograph you'll probably identify actor Hugh Grant. When asked to describe his emotions in this shot, most people describe him as relaxed and happy because of his apparent smiling face. When the shot is turned the right way up, you get a completely different view of the emotional attitude conveyed.
The Magic of Smiles and Laughter
We cut and pasted Grant's eyes and smile to produce a horrific-looking face but, as you can see, your brain can even identify a smile when a face is upside down. Not only can it do that, but the brain can separate the smile from every other part of the face. This illustrates the powerful effect a smile has on
us.
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