Sad Face
August 29, 2016 12:19 PM Subscribe
Can smiling make you happier? Maybe not. We have no idea. ... The basic finding of Strack’s research—that a facial expression can change your feelings even if you don’t know that you’re making it—has now been reproduced, at least conceptually, many, many times. ... In recent years, it has even formed the basis for the treatment of mental illness. An idea that Strack himself had scoffed at in the 1980s now is taken very seriously: Several recent, randomized clinical trials found that injecting patients’ faces with Botox to make their “frown lines” go away also helped them to recover from depression.
Looking back across these years of follow-up research, including the success of facial feedback in the clinic, Strack found himself with little doubt about the field. “The direct influence of facial expression on judgment has been demonstrated many, many times,” he told me. “I’m completely convinced.” That’s why he volunteered to help the skeptics in that email chain three years ago. “They wanted to replicate something, so I suggested my facial-feedback study,” he said. “I was confident that they would get results, so I didn’t know how interesting it would be, but OK, if they wanted to do that? It would be fine with me.” ...The results came out on August 18. They were not good. (Note: Links to PDF.)
Looking back across these years of follow-up research, including the success of facial feedback in the clinic, Strack found himself with little doubt about the field. “The direct influence of facial expression on judgment has been demonstrated many, many times,” he told me. “I’m completely convinced.” That’s why he volunteered to help the skeptics in that email chain three years ago. “They wanted to replicate something, so I suggested my facial-feedback study,” he said. “I was confident that they would get results, so I didn’t know how interesting it would be, but OK, if they wanted to do that? It would be fine with me.” ...The results came out on August 18. They were not good. (Note: Links to PDF.)
Good. Maybe strangers will finally stop telling me to smile.
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:00 PM on August 29, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:00 PM on August 29, 2016 [13 favorites]
The experiment itself deviated from the original SMS study in four notable ways...Fourth,
for the ratings, we used the phrasing from SMS Study 2 rather than Study 1. In
SMS Study 1, participants rated each cartoon on a 10-point scale ranging from not at all funny
(0) to very funny (9). However, in SMS Study 2, the predicted effect held only for the emotional
component of the humor response. We decided to maximize the probability of observing a facial
feedback effect by targeting this emotional component. Consequently, we used the SMS Study
2 phrasing: “What feeling was elicited in you by looking at the cartoons?” As in SMS Study 2,
the endpoints of the response scale (0 to 9) were labeled “I felt not at all amused” and “I felt very
much amused”.
I'm not familiar enough with the original research (especially Study 2) to have a strong opinion, but I feel like asking "how did you feel?" vs. "how funny was it?" is a huge difference. Introspection is a whole separate and confounding matter.
posted by hopeless romantique at 1:40 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
for the ratings, we used the phrasing from SMS Study 2 rather than Study 1. In
SMS Study 1, participants rated each cartoon on a 10-point scale ranging from not at all funny
(0) to very funny (9). However, in SMS Study 2, the predicted effect held only for the emotional
component of the humor response. We decided to maximize the probability of observing a facial
feedback effect by targeting this emotional component. Consequently, we used the SMS Study
2 phrasing: “What feeling was elicited in you by looking at the cartoons?” As in SMS Study 2,
the endpoints of the response scale (0 to 9) were labeled “I felt not at all amused” and “I felt very
much amused”.
I'm not familiar enough with the original research (especially Study 2) to have a strong opinion, but I feel like asking "how did you feel?" vs. "how funny was it?" is a huge difference. Introspection is a whole separate and confounding matter.
posted by hopeless romantique at 1:40 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
I have found that it is very hard to say "monkey monkey monkey" without grinning for a minute or two. I am very sad that this habit has no appreciable effect on my health.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:15 PM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:15 PM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Meta-analysis ftw!
posted by en forme de poire at 3:09 PM on August 29, 2016
posted by en forme de poire at 3:09 PM on August 29, 2016
Their piece, called "The Alleged Crisis and the Illusion of Exact Replication," argued that efforts like the RRR reflect an epistemological misunderstanding, since it's impossible to make a perfect copy of an old experiment. People change, times change, and cultures change, they said. No social psychologist ever steps in the same river twice. Even if a study could be reproduced, they added, a negative result wouldn't be that interesting, because it wouldn't explain why the replication didn't work.I assume in all of their proposals and papers they're quick to point out that they don't expect their results to have any application beyond the specific individuals and tasks directly probed by the study. If it's silly to expect a direct and careful replication to work - 'cause rivers - then it's even sillier to use such fleeting and unsubstantial results to design future studies, inform policy, or form theories about human behavior in general. Which, sadly, seems like it may well be the case.
posted by eotvos at 3:32 PM on August 29, 2016 [18 favorites]
Holding a pen in lips is judged as a pout, vs in teeth is a smile? Having people draw with a pen in their mouth? I'm sorry, the original methodology seems kind of dumb and likely to confound the results with its oddness. Interesting to know this is where this hypothesis comes from; I first encountered it while going through cognitive-behavioral therapy. It smacks of Marge Simpson's mom telling her to smile to cope with something -- the kind of self-negation I thought therapy wasn't supposed to encourage. Good to hear that black box is being reopened and analyzed.
posted by gusandrews at 4:12 PM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gusandrews at 4:12 PM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
So all the times I've been trying to brainwash myself by smiling at work aren't working?!?!?
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Wow, Pharm nailed it (or rather the paper he linked to nailed it). I came in to make the same point but Pharm's link is the most convincing report I have seen (BAYESIAN analysis too!) on (non) replicability. Crisis in science people, let the buyer beware. (sad face)
posted by bluesky43 at 5:32 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by bluesky43 at 5:32 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
I feel better when I smile, even if I fake it.
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 5:58 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 5:58 PM on August 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
I knew someone who had a vertebra taken out of her neck, by a dope, and she lost control of one side of her face. She had to have face physical therapy, and I had never heard of that. The had to have botox on the lively side, and work out the deadened side, until she came back into some sort of visual balance, because she worked one on one with people.
So a couple of years ago I had a bad year, and I was trying to change my emotions with regards to a personal loss. In addition, I had facial asymmetry from an old head injury so I started smiling therapy. It was a simple thing. I decided to smile 100 times per morning, in a mirror, if I thought of it, or if I skipped it, I would do it during my commute. I worked to balance my face, and to exercise my face to undo my lop-sided resting "B" face. This is what I learned. It works to train the musculature. It works to help create a memory of having smiled. If I did it in the commute I would also listen to music, or I would look at the scenery so that the smiling became more genuine. It did change me. Later in the day at times I would have a memory of something really nice that happened earlier, and at times, it was only the smiling exercise. The exercise, might take one and one half minutes. In the mirror, it is a strangely intimate act, but compassion for self helps one get through it. I did learn the musculature needs exercise. It is not a false value, it is training. Job interviews also went better, conversations went better too. To smile easily is a good habit to cultivate it does alter mood to enhance pleasant possibility.
posted by Oyéah at 7:43 PM on August 29, 2016 [16 favorites]
So a couple of years ago I had a bad year, and I was trying to change my emotions with regards to a personal loss. In addition, I had facial asymmetry from an old head injury so I started smiling therapy. It was a simple thing. I decided to smile 100 times per morning, in a mirror, if I thought of it, or if I skipped it, I would do it during my commute. I worked to balance my face, and to exercise my face to undo my lop-sided resting "B" face. This is what I learned. It works to train the musculature. It works to help create a memory of having smiled. If I did it in the commute I would also listen to music, or I would look at the scenery so that the smiling became more genuine. It did change me. Later in the day at times I would have a memory of something really nice that happened earlier, and at times, it was only the smiling exercise. The exercise, might take one and one half minutes. In the mirror, it is a strangely intimate act, but compassion for self helps one get through it. I did learn the musculature needs exercise. It is not a false value, it is training. Job interviews also went better, conversations went better too. To smile easily is a good habit to cultivate it does alter mood to enhance pleasant possibility.
posted by Oyéah at 7:43 PM on August 29, 2016 [16 favorites]
Why One Neuroscientist Started Blasting His Core: A new anatomical understanding of how movement controls the body’s stress response system (The Atlantic)
...
For a long time, it has been understood that the adrenal glands were turned on and off by a couple discrete pathways coming from the brain. “Folks said there was one particular cortical area, perhaps two, that controlled the adrenal medulla,” Strick explained.
Randy Bruno, an associate professor of neuroscience at Columbia University, further explained that “the way people usually think about the cortex, it’s very hierarchical.” That is, perceptions come in from the world and get sent from one part of the brain to the next, to the next, to the next. They go all the way up the chain of command to the frontal cortex. That sends some signals down to create motor actions.
If stress is controlled by these few cortical areas—the part of the brain that deals in high-level executive functioning, our beliefs and existential understandings of ourselves—why would any sort of body movement play a part in decreasing stress?
Now Strick seems to have solved his own problem. In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Pittsburgh neuroscientists showed that they have discovered a discrete, elaborate network in the cerebral cortex that controls the adrenal medulla. It seems that the connections between the brain and the adrenal medulla are much more elaborate than previously understood. Complex networks throughout the primary sensory and motor cortices are tied directly to our stress responses.
That discovery transformed Stricks’ understanding of how bodily movements influence our health. He’s starting pilates ...
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:23 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
...
For a long time, it has been understood that the adrenal glands were turned on and off by a couple discrete pathways coming from the brain. “Folks said there was one particular cortical area, perhaps two, that controlled the adrenal medulla,” Strick explained.
Randy Bruno, an associate professor of neuroscience at Columbia University, further explained that “the way people usually think about the cortex, it’s very hierarchical.” That is, perceptions come in from the world and get sent from one part of the brain to the next, to the next, to the next. They go all the way up the chain of command to the frontal cortex. That sends some signals down to create motor actions.
If stress is controlled by these few cortical areas—the part of the brain that deals in high-level executive functioning, our beliefs and existential understandings of ourselves—why would any sort of body movement play a part in decreasing stress?
Now Strick seems to have solved his own problem. In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Pittsburgh neuroscientists showed that they have discovered a discrete, elaborate network in the cerebral cortex that controls the adrenal medulla. It seems that the connections between the brain and the adrenal medulla are much more elaborate than previously understood. Complex networks throughout the primary sensory and motor cortices are tied directly to our stress responses.
That discovery transformed Stricks’ understanding of how bodily movements influence our health. He’s starting pilates ...
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:23 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
I don't know if smiling can make you happier. Maybe for the moment? But what I do know is that you can't cry if you are smiling. Well I can't, and I've had to use that little trick a lot in the past.
posted by james33 at 4:00 AM on August 30, 2016
posted by james33 at 4:00 AM on August 30, 2016
I'll buy it. Yoga is all about this - bend your body like this and your emotional state will be (subtly) tweaked like that.
And those yoga guys? They've been refining that shit for centuries. I think they've figured out some shit by now.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:16 AM on August 30, 2016
And those yoga guys? They've been refining that shit for centuries. I think they've figured out some shit by now.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:16 AM on August 30, 2016
From the comments on the plot:
Yeah! It really shows the importance of visualizing your experiment results.
But just because you can't prove it doesn't mean you shouldn't smile.
When appropriate.
posted by MtDewd at 7:39 AM on August 30, 2016
Yeah! It really shows the importance of visualizing your experiment results.
But just because you can't prove it doesn't mean you shouldn't smile.
When appropriate.
posted by MtDewd at 7:39 AM on August 30, 2016
In the Paranoia comics (based on an obscure, but fantastic RPG), the main character gets a device attached to his face. The unhappier he gets, the more he is forced to smile, the idea being that the smile will make him happier again. This being paranoia, there is no maximum setting for the device, so he is assassinated by someone giving him what are essentially sad drugs and having the thing rip his face in two, like a trap from the Saw series.
Anyway, given our slide towards a distopian civilization, it's probably a good thing this research is being questioned. Who wants one of those on their head?
posted by Hactar at 8:50 AM on August 30, 2016
Anyway, given our slide towards a distopian civilization, it's probably a good thing this research is being questioned. Who wants one of those on their head?
posted by Hactar at 8:50 AM on August 30, 2016
why would any sort of body movement play a part in decreasing stress? Seriously, the individual who is doing the research is asking this question? Is this individual pre-pubescent? C'mon now, all that sex, all those exercise endorphins? A lot of credible research on this topic is available.
posted by Oyéah at 9:05 AM on August 30, 2016
posted by Oyéah at 9:05 AM on August 30, 2016
Smiling represses the gag reflex.
#thingsIlearnedfrom CSI
posted by tspae at 2:44 PM on August 30, 2016
#thingsIlearnedfrom CSI
posted by tspae at 2:44 PM on August 30, 2016
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posted by pharm at 12:52 PM on August 29, 2016 [6 favorites]