Social Effects Of A Positive Smile

As a group, we drew inspiration from social psychologist Kurt Lewin to work as a group to take a deeper look into the social influence and effects of a simple smile on unknowing individuals. Our experiment was very thought provoking to the unsuspecting participants and was an interesting way to analyze the social behavior of the human species through the context of a smile. For the experimental method portion of our project, we took notes as studied the effects of a warm smile before following up with a series of questions about how the friendliness affected their thoughts or actions. The results of our experiment were no surprise. They were tried and true, showing that nearly 90 percent of the participants had a positive influence from our

Social influence is defined as “changes in behavior induced by the actions of others” (Coon & Mitterer, 2015). In our case, the change in behavior is exemplified by the participants either reciprocating a smile or not as well as through measuring a change in the attitudes of those participating. We researched Silvan Tomkins’ facial feedback theory from 1962 in which he stated that "the face expresses affect, both to others and the self, via feedback, which is more rapid and more complex than any stimulation” (Adelman, 1989). This finding served as an influence on our project for us to measuring the correlation of the change in attitude that a smile has on

Question: Does a smile have a positive influence on a person’s attitude? Hypothesis: We hypothesized that a smile will have a positive social influence. Method: To prove our hypothesis, we chose at random a total of twenty strangers on Northeast Alabama Community College’s campus and smiled at them as they walked by. We were sure to notice their responding expression, if there were any verbal replies in acknowledgement of the test smile, then we answered our four follow-up questions to measure our results. The questions asked were as as follows: “Were there changes in the participant’s behavior?” (measured by if they reciprocated a smile or not), “Did they have a change in attitude?” (measured from if they felt more happy as a result of our experiment), “Was the test smile perceived as being genuine by the participant?”, and “Was the participant’s smile -if reciprocated- genuine or out of