The Journal of Animal Consciousness Vol 1, Issue 2 Vol 1 Issue 2 | Page 45

Can Smiling be Bad for You? Sarah L. Reagan Most people would think this question to be absolutely absurd. And certainly there is sufficient science as well as anecdotal evidence to tell us that smiling is indeed good for you. What I am referring to here is that forced smile, that happy face you try to put on for your customers’ sake, or because it’s not ‘politically correct’ to do otherwise around someone that has thoroughly upset you (perhaps your boss), or because some new age guru said you can change your whole life for the better just by smiling. Yet a recent study by a Michigan State University business scholar suggests workers in the customer-service sector who fake a smile throughout the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, affecting productivity. This forced state of happiness can actually cause one to withdraw from the task at hand. “Employers may think that simply getting their employees to smile is good for the organization, but that’s not necessarily the case. Smiling for the sake of smiling can lead to emotional exhaustion and withdrawal, and that’s bad for the organization.” Interestingly – “Previous research suggests women are both expected to and do show greater emotional intensity and positive emotional expressiveness than men. Thus, faking a smile while still feeling negative emotion conflicts with this cultural norm and may cause even more harmful feelings in women...” (Brent Scott, study author and assistant professor of management, Michigan State University). What does this have to do with our animals? Plenty. It’s called shaping behavior. A well-known dog trainer and TV personality likes to lift a dog’s tail up (when it’s tucked between the legs) in a presumed effort to ‘cheer the dog up’. How many horse owners have you seen take their horse’s pinned-back ears and try to pivot them forward into the so-called relaxed position in an attempt to allay fright or to down-scale aggressive behavior? It is an integral part of behaviorist training techniques which utilize operant conditioning methods that the animal should be held or maintained in certain positions for prescribed lengths of time because it is ‘good’ for them, thus shaping their behavior into a so-called 45 © The Society for Animal Consciousness 2016. Issue 2, Vol 1, April 2016.