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
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© The Society for Animal Consciousness 2016.
Issue 2, Vol 1, April 2016.