Smiling Portrait

“Service with a Smile”---This has always been at the core of American businesses since the beginning of the 1900s. Research continually proves that this is true; smiling really does increase attractiveness and likability between humans. In fact, people who tend to smile produce what is called the halo effect, which correlates with greater trust, greater financial earnings, and increased interpersonal cooperation. In a time of increased stress due to cutbacks, high debt, and increasing family issues, employees are often required to work with a distressed public. However, a smile tends to convey respect, patience, empathy, hospitality and compassion. For example, when an employee smiles at a stressed customer, and exhibits excellent listening skills, most of the time, there is a report of total customer satisfaction. Research also reports that people receive more help when they smile. Even the smile of a stranger produces more “Good Samaritan” effects on the receiver. When you smile, even memory retrieval of your name is enhanced as is shown in neuroscience research, versus people who have neutral facial expressions.
• Laughter
In social contexts, smiling is related to laughter. In this situation, two kinds of smiling are analyzed:
- Smiling is a pre-laughing device and is a common pattern for paving the way to laughter;