Neuroscience
The last thing you need if you're feeling rejected is to waste time pursuing friendships with people who aren't genuinely interested. That's according to Michael Bernstein and his colleagues, who say we've actually evolved a perceptual adaptation to rejection that helps prevent this from happening.
Bernstein's team provoked feelings of rejection in students by asking them to write about a time they felt rejected or excluded. These students were subsequently better at distinguishing fake from real smiles as depicted in four-second video clips, than were students who'd either been asked to write about a time they felt included, or to write about the previous morning.
"These results are among the first to show that rejection can lead to increases in performance at the perceptual level, provided that the performance supports opportunities for affiliation," the researchers said.
However, I wonder if this increased ability to detect fake smiles is as adaptive as the researchers imply. In the same way that unrealistically positive beliefs about the self can guard against depression, perhaps it would be more helpful to a socially excluded person to tone down their sensitivity to fake smiles. After all, just because a stranger gives you a fake smile doesn't mean they aren't a potential friend - they may just have had a bad day.
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Michael J. Bernstein, Steven G. Young, Christina M. Brown, Donald F. Sacco, Heather M. Claypool (2008). Adaptive Responses to Social Exclusion: Social Rejection Improves Detection of Real and Fake Smiles Psychological Science, 19 (10), 981-983 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02187.x
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
We're better at spotting fake smiles when we're feeling rejected
The last thing you need if you're feeling rejected is to waste time pursuing friendships with people who aren't genuinely interested. That's according to Michael Bernstein and his colleagues, who say we've actually evolved a perceptual adaptation to rejection that helps prevent this from happening.Bernstein's team provoked feelings of rejection in students by asking them to write about a time they felt rejected or excluded. These students were subsequently better at distinguishing fake from real smiles as depicted in four-second video clips, than were students who'd either been asked to write about a time they felt included, or to write about the previous morning.
"These results are among the first to show that rejection can lead to increases in performance at the perceptual level, provided that the performance supports opportunities for affiliation," the researchers said.
However, I wonder if this increased ability to detect fake smiles is as adaptive as the researchers imply. In the same way that unrealistically positive beliefs about the self can guard against depression, perhaps it would be more helpful to a socially excluded person to tone down their sensitivity to fake smiles. After all, just because a stranger gives you a fake smile doesn't mean they aren't a potential friend - they may just have had a bad day.
_________________________________
Michael J. Bernstein, Steven G. Young, Christina M. Brown, Donald F. Sacco, Heather M. Claypool (2008). Adaptive Responses to Social Exclusion: Social Rejection Improves Detection of Real and Fake Smiles Psychological Science, 19 (10), 981-983 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02187.xPost written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Most People Can Fake A Genuine "duchenne" Smile
For years, the literature on the psychology of smiling has claimed that fake smiles can be easily and reliably distinguished from genuine smiles by the absence of crinkling around the eyes. The eye crinkling of a supposedly real "Duchenne smile" (named...
- Not In My Gang: Children's And Teenagers' Reasons For Excluding Others
It's a fact of life that when kids form friendship groups some would-be members get left out. A lot of psychology research has focused on what it's like to be rejected. But now a new study has taken a more unusual approach, asking children and...
- Extras
Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut: The psychological benefits of indoor plants. Wild chimps rely on cultural knowledge to work out how to reach the honey. Past research has shown that the socially rejected are better able to distinguish...
- What's In A Baby's Smile?
Watch a nine-month-old baby playing with his mother and it's already apparent that the child is a truly social being. You'll doubtless see him smiling and directing his mother's attention to share what he's interested in. But according...
- Tickle: Not Such A Laughing Matter
The similar way we react to a joke and to being tickled has led some, including Darwin, to suggest that our emotional experience of each is the same: that tickle is a 'physical joke'. Now for the first time, psychologists have studied people’s...