Emotion Section Overview
Activities
 Spot the Fake Smile Challenge
 What Makes a Smile Genuine?
 Yearbook Photo Analysis
Bring to Class
 Laptop for demos
Teaching Goals and Strategies
 The “a-ha” moment of this section should be when students realize that
something as seemingly trivial as a yearbook photo smile can predict major
life outcomes. Encourage students to think about how a single data point
can represent an important individual difference, and how our behaviors
have cumulative lifetime effects.
 Anytime you allow students to use themselves as data, it is important to be
very careful about how you phrase the “findings.” If you try the studentsanalyze-their-own-photo activity, be sure to emphasize the lighter side of the
activity.
Project/Exam
 Exam 2 is this week. Answer any questions and remind students of review
session.
 Return part 2 of the Research and Writing Project, and provide general
feedback to the class as useful. Full paper for peer review is due next week.
Review instructions.
Resources and Background Material
Summaries of research related to Yearbook Photo Activity:
www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=4307
www.apa.org/monitor/jan01/collegepix.html
www.jstor.org/view/00222445/ap050003/05a00120/0
Make-up Assignment (300-500 word suggested length)
Read Paul Ekman’s “Recognizing Faces and Feelings” in the Norton Psychology
Reader (pp. 245-254), take the emotion recognition challenge at
www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/media_works
/social.html, and write a reaction paper to Ekman’s research.
Activity 1: Spot the Fake Smile Challenge
www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml
Can you tell which smiles are genuine? This challenge uses video clips, not
photos, so you can observe the full initiation and expression of the smiles. Lead
the class through this demo (poll them for each smile, but don’t take too long for
each oneyou need to get through all 20 to get to the correct results). Discuss
what strategies students used to identify genuine from faked smiles.
Activity 2: What Makes a Smile Genuine?
You can show students the different muscles engaged in genuine versus faked
smiles on this site: www.artnatomia.net/uk/index.html. Go to “Application” and
then “Level 2.” Show students “Smile” and “Laughter” (they are essentially a
faked and genuine smile, respectively). This flash demo shows the muscles
important to identifying facial expressions. If students are interested, this flash
demo allows you to manipulate facial muscles to produce different emotion
expressions. Can student move those muscles intentionally to produce an
expression? Ask students to try, and be “judged” by the person next to them.
Activity 3: Yearbook Photo Analysis (Positive Emotion Expression)
1. 1940’s Yearbook Photos. Show students the overhead/slide “Most Likely to
Have a Happy Marriage?” an ask them to predict which one of the women they
think is most likely to have a happy long-term relationship. Students will probably
pick the woman with the most genuine smile (bottom left corner). Ask why.
Although they may say she is the most attractive, what you are interested in is
that she looks happy, has a nice smile, etc. Ask students which is most likely to
divorce. Again, ask students why, and focus on comments about emotion
expression.
2. Students’ Yearbook Photos. In the previous section, or via email, ask students
to bring in their senior yearbook photo, or another non-candid (posed) photo.
Have them swap photos with a classmate and identify whether the smile is a
Duchenne smile or not (based on the guidelines given in activities 1 and 2).
3. Share the results of a study (Harker & Keltner, 2001) that found that positive
outcomes (including a happy marriage) are associated with Duchenne smiles in
yearbook photos (see resource list for summaries). Be sure to emphasize what the
authors of the study point out: “Having a bad yearbook picture does not
necessarily make one destined to a life of singleness or failed marriage.” The
association in this study is significant but not overwhelming. Another interesting
point is that positive emotion expression was a better predictor of positive social
outcomes than physical attractiveness.
4. Share the results of a study (Gottman & Levenson, 2000) that found that
positive and negative expressions during ordinary conversation and a conflict
discussion predicted divorce; contempt expressions in wives is the best predictor
of divorce. Relate back to the 1940’s yearbook photos.
If there is time for continued discussion:
1. There are gender differences in this culture about emotion expression;
women are expected to show more positive emotion expression. Why might
this be? Do students think that the yearbook photo study of women would
replicate with men? If not, might there be another type of emotion expression
that would predict positive outcomes for men? (Research suggests that
anger expression has some positive social outcomes for men, although
marriage is probably not among them.)
2. Why do we display emotions we are not actually feeling? What is the purpose
of “fake” positive emotion expression? Even if it is obvious that someone is
making a purposeful display, might there be positive social consequences?
3. Give students a challenge: purposefully display positive emotion expressions
more often, to more people, in more situations. In other words, smile! This is
not mean to be a Pollyanna instruction; it is an opportunity to observe if
positive emotion expression has observable positive social consequences.
MOST LIKELY TO HAVE A HAPPY MARRIAGE?