The Ultimate Body Language Book

Research on smiles has been a hot topic since its one of the facial features that is so prominent and
important day-to-day. But what purpose do facial expressions serve overall if only to make others
aware of our inner thoughts and feelings and perhaps betray us to our enemies? Surely our expressions
could be used against us, for the benefit of others, especially given the fact that we often paint our faces
with emotion easily and sometimes with abandon.
One theory says that facial expressions are a bit of a chicken and the egg type of situation where it is
the expressions we make that in fact control our moods, rather than having our moods influence our
expressions. In other words it might be that we give off facial expressions not because we feel happier,
but because it helps us to feel happy. This implies that facial expressions are more gear to help those
that hold them instead of those who view them and that smiling rather than indicate happiness actually
creates happiness. Some of the research does tend to support this finding. When subjects were asked to
fake smiles in research studies they tended to be more able to hold positive emotions rather than
negative emotions so it seems that our minds are emotionally hardwired to mirror expressions that
show up on our face.