In my Psych class we were assigned a project where we had to smile at every other student in the hallways and record our experience. This article displays my personal thoughts and findings while performing said experiment.
Part One
My thoughts and feelings toward the smile project are all positive. I am excited to be encouraged to smile at others and have a reason to smile at others rather than my own strange attitude. I am excited to see others make an effort to smile at people, even if the thought is not genuine, today’s society is full of judgmental looks, snarky comments, and hidden faces, the effort to smile at someone will go a very long way, I believe the more that participate the more likely smiling at others could be normalized.
I know from personal experience that when I make an effort to smile at people, and I go out of my way to let someone know I am happy that I have passed them or I am glad they exist, I feel better about myself and I feel more positive towards other activities I may have to do. I know that the more people I smile at the better I will feel about myself and the more effort I will put into other tasks.
If I was to be the only one to smile at others, I may be perceived as different or weird, however there will be a group of others that will smile back, and maybe I can change the day of at least one person. If it is a large group of people, maybe the ideologies and perceptions of smiling at others will be normalized. I don’t care if I am perceived as weird, or fake, I just hope that truly smiling at everyone, with eyes and all, I can change at least one person’s day and make them feel better about themselves and maybe a situation they could be in.
In the past I was requested to take the personality test, originally my personality was ENFP-T however after about a year of living abroad and 10 months of forcing myself to view the world more positively and controlled I saw my personality changed to ENFP-A. This could be a factor in why I believe intentionally smiling at many people will be thrilling and cause joy for me and others.
While looking at my sociodynamics one may note that I am 18, cis female, Citizen of the United States, I have lived in NY my whole life, I have also lived abroad twice for long periods of time in Europe. Another aspect I might note is I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this causes me to have a more optimistic view on life and the human body all together.
When thinking about my grandparents, and looking back on photos, I feel as if we did this test 50 years ago the results would be more positive. Smiles seemed more genuine, laughter seemed less forced, and the stories I have heard make me feel as though it would almost be natural to just smile at everyone.
Part Two
My assumptions were accurate, I knew almost everyone would smile back. Obviously some people didn’t even notice I was smiling at them as they were either zoned out, in their own conversations, or looking down. However the majority of people smiled back. The smile was sometimes genuine, however, more often than not the smile seemed to be a quick reaction and regretted after. I also tried a different aspect as I am used to smiling at people. I tried smiling and complimenting more people than normal, this caused another reaction of false positivity. I thought it was interesting that half of the people I complimented laughed at me with their friends and talked about it rather than even acknowledging the compliment directly. There was about a quarter of genuine gratitude, and another quarter that spat out a reciprocated compliment.
I took another approach, because smiling for me is normal, I know this project because I live it. I took a month of not going out of my way to smile at people, granted this was not the test, but a personal inquiry I thought might benefit this experiment from my perspective. After a month of not going out of my way to smile at people I personally felt less optimistic, I felt more stressed, and even more anxiety. I felt less whimsical and I even started to feel like everyone was judging me or looking at me poorly. Through this I discovered that the genuine act of going out of the way to acknowledge other people and smile, even though it is awkward, makes me feel mentally healthier and more confident.
I learned that the majority of people will not go out of their way to smile at people, and the majority of people will not try to make you feel good about yourself unless they benefit from it. I believe this comes from insecurity and social awkwardness due to the act of normally using a cellular device. I also gathered the information that teachers are almost always more likely to smile back genuinely than a student will.
Regarding this project 50 years ago, I do truly believe my original statement is accurate. As stated in the previous paragraph, the adults in the school responded much more generously than the student body. For this I truly do believe if this was conducted 50 years ago, the results would have been more unanimously smiles back rather than random responses.
Part Three
There are several aspects in psychology that one could use to prove as to why the students reacted the way they did. I could say it is a social norm, however that would not explain the people that did/did not smile back, it also would not explain why the teachers reacted so much differently. I believe two of the most relative concepts would be cognitive conditioning and conformity. I also think that reciprocal determinism could be the reason that when I did not smile at everyone or receive smiles I felt more down and disliked.
The cognitive conditioning shows how people are likely to smile back when they have been conditioned with the reward of smiling. I believe people are less likely to smile at everyone if they have been made fun of for it in the past, and people are more likely to smile back if they understand the benefits and how it feels to receive a smile.
I also think, if I can remember correctly, people were more likely to smile back if they were alone rather than in groups. When someone is in a group they tend to conform to the groups standards, and if someone doesn’t want to be perceived as either flamboyant, whimsical, or simply odd, they are probably more likely to conform to the group and less likely to acknowledge my smile. No I do not believe smiling at someone makes anyone flamboyant, whimsical, or simply odd, however I am a highschool student and I do listen to the conversations that are presented in the hallways.
I think going to a school can be difficult because many feel the pressure to fit into social norms and conform to social structures to protect their reputation. Others are simply shaped to respond in a specific way due to past experiences. One’s life truly impacts the way they smile and intrinsic versus extrinsic thoughts or even their personality may impact their confidence relating to how they respond in conformable situations.