Hack95.Make Yourself Happy
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Hack 95. Make Yourself Happy
Turn on your affective system by tweaking your face musclesor getting an eyeful of someone else doing the same. Find yourself a pen, preferably a nontoxic, nonleaky one. We're going to use this little item to improve your quality of life and give you a little pleasure. 10.4.1. In ActionPut the pen between your teeth, in far enough so that it's stretching the edges if your mouth back without being uncomfortable. Feeling weird? Just hold it there for a little, and appraise your level of mood. You should find that you end up feeling just a little happier. If you want to go for the reverse effect, remove the pen (maybe give it a wipe), then trap it between your upper lip and nose like a mustache. If you're feeling anything, it's likely to be a touch of gloom, particularly in contrast to when you had the pen in your mouth. Alternatively, if you're pen-averse, refer to the pictures in [Hack #94] and scrutinize the smiling face for a while. You should find yourself perked upwhile the unhappy photo will likely send you downhill if you stare at it a little. 10.4.2. How It WorksEmotional expressions are much more than just by-products of our affective system, the system that deals with emotions. Expressions serve as agents that transmit emotions to other individuals and are crucial in creating and maintaining our own emotional experience. And while aspects of this may be conscious and deliberatemy girlfriend may throw me a grin to let me know she's not mad that I've been glued to the computer all evening, and that reassurance will make me happythere is a deeply automatic component. This is termed primitive contagion and is characterized as a three-stage process: it begins with perception, which triggers mimicry, which itself produces emotion. [Hack #94] deals with how we perceive emotions, so here we`ll unpack the other two stages: mimicry and resulting emotion. 10.4.2.1 MimicryAn array of experiments shows that, when emotional faces are presented, subjects produce corresponding facial expressions. For example, subjects can tell from recordings of their faces which emotions they must have been looking at originally. Additionally, facial EMG changes occur after only a few hundred milliseconds: the zygomatic muscles (in the cheeks) used for smiling show more activity after seeing a happy face, while the corrugator muscles (between the eyes, at the top of the nose) used for frowning are more active after viewing anger.
It seems this is something we just can't help. Show emotional faces (photographs in newspapers usually fit the bill) to a friend and look for the flicker of mimicry his face invariably betrays. The stronger the expression portrayed in the picture, the stronger your subject's emotional response. The phenomenon can even be found when a face is shown subliminally Section 9.3 and [Hack #99] and the viewer is unaware of seeing any kind of expressive face; the facial muscles betray the effect. 10.4.2.2 Resulting emotionThe act of making an emotional expression has an effect on our emotional state. This has been shown experimentally, most convincingly when the experience is divorced as much as possible from labels like "smiling" (as in the case of pushing back on your lip): simply activating critical muscles produces the effect. This deep coupling to the motor system (a fundamental and ancient function of the brain) underlines the primitive nature of emotions. Direct and automatic feedback means muscular changes make you happier in general without having to invoke concepts of "happy" or a "smile": a joke really is funnier with the pen in your mouth. These stepsobservation, facial mimicry, and finally acquisition of the observed emotionare an effective way of unifying a group of people under one emotion and therefore of marshaling social units to act together. You can see the benefits of having a whole group being scaredaroused and ready for rapid actionif the situation warrants it, rather than some of the group not taking the threat seriously and everyone else trying to convince them. Lengthy persuasion can be avoided given that emotional communication is often automatic. Emotions act as orienting systems, and the adaptive benefit is clear when you consider the importance of rapid mobilization of individuals in a group under certain circumstances: confrontation, escape, or rejection of poisonous food. 10.4.3. In Real LifeStand-up comics could learn a thing or two from our exampleperhaps comedy clubs should have a pen-in-mouth policy. The broader point is that, for any communicator, direct visual or aural contact is extremely useful as a means of emotionally orienting an audience. If you want them to be angry, CAPS LOCK WON'T CUT IT relative to a tremor in the voice or a scowl. Similarly, smiles and laughter are contagious. Remote communication can reduce the availability of these cues, although the advent of videoconferencing and other technologies is changing this. Emoticons are a simple attempt to hack into this system, although it remains for the cunning designer to find ever more effective ways of simulating truly contagious emotions. We may also note that women are more facially expressive in response to emotional stimuli, although it is uncertain whether they are also more emotionally affected; one could consider how gender differences could affect social dynamics. 10.4.4. See Also
Alex Fradera & Disa Sauter |
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EAN: N/A
Pages: 159