Smile - its free and you'll feel better!

How are you feeling today? A bit flat perhaps - the trauma of dragging yourself out of bed on this Winter's day. Well SMILE! That's right break into a nice cheesy grin. Research into something called the Facial Feedback hypothesis shows that our emotions are affected by our facial expressions. Laird (1974) tested this hypothesis by deceiving participants into thinking they were having activity in their facial muscles measured. Electrodes were attached and participants were asked to make facial expressions. While this was going on their was a series of cartoon slides shown in the background. Participants rated the slides funnier when they were 'smiling' and also reported feeling happier when smiling (and more irritable when frowning!).