Smile is good for physical and mental health. What about a fake smile?

When we look at a person with a happy smile, we will say that he "laughed like a child who did not go through the world", not to say that the child had no trouble, but that this kind of smile from the heart often felt warm and pure.

This kind of natural smiles caused by pleasant emotions have a lot of benefits. They can adjust their own mentality to convey friendliness, but also show their self -confidence to others, exude charm and obsessed with everyone.

Picture source: giphy official website

It's just that in addition to the real smile, we often see the false smile of "Pi Laughing and Not Smile" -for example, when the class is late, the embarrassing smiles slowly squeezed out on your face. Compared with the real smile, the smile is not happy from the heart, and the expression also looks deliberate and hypocritical.

Picture source: giphy official website

What is the difference between the false smile and the true laugh? Can fake laughter confuse the brain and have a positive effect? Or is it too deliberate because of a fake laughter, will it bring bad physiological reactions?

Real Smile = Du Xing Smile

To understand the false smile, first of all, we must know what is a real laugh. Through the different combinations, contraction and distortion of the 42 muscles of the face, the faces we present to the world are constantly changing. Humans can produce thousands of different facial expressions -including 19 different types of smiles.

However, according to the research of American psychologist Paul Ekman, only one of them was "real" smile, "Duchenne Smile".

Du Xing Smile Picture Source: Wikipedia-Eric McGregor

Du Xing's smile was discovered by French anatomist Du Xing in 1862, but it was not paid only in the 1950s and 1960s.

Through research, Du Xing found that the "real" smile mainly had two facial muscles to participate, that is, the natal [quán] big muscle and the eye wheel -orbicus around the eyes. The former shrinking can make the corner of the mouth, and the latter can move the apple muscle to move upward, and make the eyes look more curved. At the same time, some people's eyes will appear with laughter, or lying silkworms are more obvious.

You are exposed, you are smiling fake

In contrast, the fake smile appears to be "a little calm." The corners of the fake smile are the same as the real smile, but it does not involve changes caused by muscles around the eyes. If you block the face when you smile, you will find that the smile of the fake smile is dim, and the eyebrows will not bow.

Du Xing smiling (left) and Feixing smile (right) Picture source: reference [3]

Du Xing confirmed this in his studies. He uses an electric shock to stimulate the migrant muscle of the experimental object, as shown on the left side of the figure below, which makes the subject's mouth twitch, but the expression of the eyes is weird; then he told the subject to tell some happy things, Let him laugh spontaneously, the picture on the right is the smile of the subject from the inside.

The same interviewer, the smile on the right is obviously more natural and happier, and the smile is as brilliant as when the news that you receive the final exam or extend the holiday for ten days. Therefore, a real smile can make the orbicular muscle movement, which will cause the eyes to be slightly closed.

False smile (left) and Zhenxiao (right) picture source: G.-B. Duchenne de Boulogn

True smile vs fake smile: Can you really distinguish it?

With the above knowledge, can it be asserted, as long as the eyes are not closed, it must be a fake smile? In fact, if you deliberately make an exaggerated smile, it will also drive the corners of the eyes; and if the real smile is only smiling, it will not narrow the eye hole.

Therefore, if you want to distinguish the person on the opposite side, you really smile and laugh, and you have to find more subtle details, such as slightly reduced eyebrows, the skin between the skin and the upper eyelids, and so on.

Picture source: reference [4]

You may ask, wouldn't someone take the initiative to control these facial muscles, wouldn't it be completely unable to distinguish or laugh? Theoretically, according to Ekman's research, basically no one can actively shrink the orbicularis oculi, which is part of the muscle that is difficult to shrink.

Position of the location of the human facial muscles and eye wheels (orbicularis Oculi) location: OpenStax.org

Eye wheels are composed of two parts: the inner ring is used to tighten the skin of the eyelids and under the eyelids, and the outer ring is surrounded by the eye sockets, which can pull down the skin and the skin under the eyebrows and lift the skin under the eyes, and improve the cheeks.

Strictly speaking, the inner ring muscles with tight eyelids can be controlled by everyone. Without this action, we cannot expose the fake laughter, but the orbicularis muscle in the outer circle is difficult to control.

For a long time, people think that it is a talent to show "Du Xing smile" in the photo, and it may be a skill that is different from person to smile. But the research in recent years seems to refute this view: as long as you practice, even if you laugh, you can laugh and laugh and smile sincerely (at least it looks like this).

In this study of Du Xing's smile, even if the participants heard less happy news, 24%of people could show "Du Xing smile" (the proportion of Du Xing's smile from the heart was 31%) Essence And, when the researchers let these people imitate Du Xing's smile, 71%of them succeeded.

In addition, many actors with excellent acting skills seem to be happy when they laugh. They may be a very small number of people who can control the orbicularis mycoplasma muscles of the outer circle. Generate a real expression. It is okay to laugh, but don't "greedy cups"

As we all know, "Smiling, ten years young", maintaining smiles is good for health. When we laugh, our facial muscles will respond, driving our nerves to produce corresponding hormones and cause a series of reactions to eliminate stress. So when we laugh, will there be the same effect?

The answer is yes. Although the smile from the heart has the strongest effect, there is evidence that even if it is a fake smile, it has similar effects. According to the study of the Dalph University of Delff, a smile is realized by a FFH, FACIAL FEEDBACK HYPOTHESIS): artificially expressing a certain facial expression can cause a facial expression that can lead to the corresponding emotional experience that can lead to the corresponding emotional experience Generate or enhance.

Image source: veer gallery

Fake laughter can reduce pressure, and it can also bring the physiological effect of "falseness with falseness", but long -term fake laughter is not conducive to physical and mental health. In order to work or social needs, many people have to laugh for a long time and maintain business "standard smiles".

For a long time, this kind of professional smile suppresss the true feelings of people, but will make "smile" a burden. Over time, it may even develop into depression. It often shows that it is very anxious and depressed in the heart, but the external surface is on the surface. But nothing happened.

Picture source: pixabay

The smile from the heart makes people feel refreshing, like the spring breeze, but this does not mean that the fake laughter is "useless". False smile is both a social etiquette, but also a benign response that is similar to the real smile.

It ’s just that the smiling is like medicine. It is only necessary if necessary. Often, it will only make yourself tired. In short, we don't need to have a burden on the fake laughter. The most important thing is to laugh sincerely and be "a person with heartless laughed"!

Produced: Popular Science China

Author: Duck Ge Popular

Producer: China Science Popularization Expo

Reference materials:

[1] Facial expression and behavior consistency, teach you to identify the fake laughter? http://jysh.people.cn/n1/2019/0918/c404390-31358734.html

[2] duchenne de boulogne. Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/duchenne_de_boulogne

[3]Sacco D F, Brown M, Lustgraaf C J N, et al. Women’s dangerous world beliefs predict more accurate discrimination of affiliative facial cues[J]. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 2017, 11(4): 309.

[4]Vandeventer J, Patterson E. Differentiating Duchenne from non-Duchenne smiles using active appearance models[C]//2012 IEEE Fifth International Conference on Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS). IEEE, 2012: 319-324.

[5] Paul ekman. Https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E4%BF%9D%E7%97%C2%B7%E8%8%85%8B%E6 %9b%BC

[6] Smiling with your eyes: What exactly is a duchenne smile? Https://www.healthline.com/health/duchenne-smile

[7] Fake Smile or Genuine Smile? The Importance of the Duchenne Smile. Https://www.paulekman.com/blog/fake- or-teenuine-smile/

[8] Duchenne Smile, A Genuine Smile that Involves the Muscles Around the Eyes. Https://www.newscientist.com/definition/duchenne-smile/=?3 scientific methods help you see through your friends' acting https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv1709480/

[10] I won't laugh when I take a picture?Why does the smile in the photo always look like being open?https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/onh78rzh6e7czrhc634EJQ

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