Was anyone else disturbed by Strack and Martin's hand-waving away the null replication result? Based on my (admittedly elementary) knowledge of statistics, it seems like 17 replication attempts (samples) whose means are distributed around zero constitute some pretty airtight empirical evidence that there's no inner emotional effect from smiling. How else to read Strack and Martin's complaints but as a kind of special pleading that there was something ineffable about the experiment that the replications missed? Some of their comments gesture in the direction of claiming that replication may be literally impossible.<p>I walked away from this article more convinced than ever that there are big problems with this field of research. And I don't "want" to believe it, either -- I loved Kahneman's <i>Thinking, Fast and Slow</i>.<p>Speaking of which, kudos to Kahneman himself for being (apparently) a more committed empiricist than the other psychologists discussed here.
A relevant post on slate star codex:<p><a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/25/devoodooifying-psychology/" rel="nofollow">http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/25/devoodooifying-psycholo...</a>
Interesting question. This week it was reported that Gene Wilder passed away. Yet if you look at most photos he is smiling and as I look at them I cannot but help feel positive. Why?<p><pre><code> "The interesting part is that mirror
neurons fire in the same way when we
actually recreate that action ourselves." [0]
</code></pre>
Is something to do with mirror neurons (not mentioned at all in the article), that govern our ability to mimic at the neuron level? These effects can be measured at cellular level without having to have a subject self report. There is ample evidence reported in Nature on both the mechanism and evidence supporting the idea that viewing of emotion cues in others, effects your own emotional response.<p>[0] Sourya Acharya,Samarth Shukla, "Mirror neurons: Enigma of the metaphysical modular brain"<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3510904/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3510904/</a>
Smile awhile<p>And give your face a rest<p>Raise your hand to the one you love the best,<p>Then shake hands with those nearby,<p>And greet them with a smile!
Forced smiles making you more happy? Talk to anyone in in-person customer service. Talk to a model or "sales associate". Talk to a waitress, or even a stripper. There are plenty of people who force smiles all day. It isn't fun. They don't feel better about themselves afterwards.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_mask_syndrome" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_mask_syndrome</a><p>"According to Natsume, this atmosphere sometimes causes women to smile unnaturally for so long that they start to suppress their real emotions and become depressed."
The title needs work. The original title "Another Classic Psychology Finding—That You Can Smile Your Way to Happiness—Just Blew Up" is more appropriate.<p>If you can't replicate results, it's not science. Deal with it.
Sigh. People seem to always forget that we're a social species and a lot of our emotions have social roles.<p>Smiling as such does not make us feel happier. That is trivially proven, just as pretending to cry does nit make us sadder.<p>Thinking of happy things can make us feel happier, and thus we may smile.<p>But what makes us happiest of all is when other people smile at us (without being creepy). And so if I smile at you , and you smile back, then I will absolutely feel happier.