June 2006
Volume 19, Number 6
Why Robert Kraut Smiles
See Also:
All That's Gold Does Not Glitter
Why Bowlers Smile
The Golden Fleece Award: Love's Labours Almost Lost
What's Love Got to Do With It?
What We Can Do
In his CV under "Honors and National Committees," Robert Kraut proudly includes the following entry: "March, 1980, Golden Fleece Award." Kraut, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human- Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, received Senator Proxmire's dubious distinction for his research showing that people smile primarily in social situations, rather than merely because they are happy. Kraut went outside the laboratory to obtain ecologically valid data on smiling – observing bowlers, hockey fans, and pedestrians. What Kraut found in his research, which was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, is that people usually do not smile much just because they feel happy; they smile because they want to communicate feelings to others.
The late Senator Proxmire did not realize when he presented the Golden Fleece Award to Kraut that this research provided a fundamental insight into one of the cross-cultural universals in human behavior, and that, in the process, it was among the first precursors to the field today known as Evolutionary Psychology. The senator was looking for research that to voters might appear silly with the right description, rather than being concerned with whether the research provided an understanding of important human behavior.
Although Kraut's studies were conducted with bowlers and hockey fans, they uncovered a phenomenon that applies to interactions between mothers and their babies, therapists and their clients, workers and their bosses – in other words, smiling in social situations. The smile is a facial response that is recognized around the globe and helps bind people together. We are indeed a "social animal," and the smile is a central way we communicate. I once did a study that blew up in my face because I asked a group of participants not to smile for three days – and they absolutely could not do it. I had a rebellion on my hands because the smile is so crucial to effective social interactions. Kraut's studies yielded an important insight into the true genesis of smiling, and provided a foundation for later research, both in the laboratory and the field, that provided increased understanding of how people communicate through facial expressions.
Reference
- Kraut, R.E., & Johnston, Robert E. (1979). Social and emotional messages of smiling: An ethological approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1539-1553.
