A serious or neutral expression is considered more professional, but smiling makes you seem confident, co-operative and friendly – and marks you out from the crowd
A frown turned upside down.What is there to smile about? This country’s going to hell, and I just paidThat’s because a smile is worth nothing.But I am none of those things.Who’s gonna give a job to a grinning idiotPast research did seem to indicate that a serious or neutral expression in an applicant was deemed more professional, but it turns out smiling is better.The authors of a new study presented at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“First impressions are very important,” said the study’s leader, Sabrina Chan, “and research shows people have stronger memories for happy faces.”It might well. A genuine or “felt” smile – sometimes called a Duchenne smile, after the 19th-century French neurologist who experimented with facial expressions by attaching electrodes to the freshly severed heads of revolutionaries – was thought to be impossible to fake. But that isn’t true.