Smile?

2016/11/14 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Anatomia/Fisiologia
• Osasuna

If we write in English the words smiles, science and happiness in the internet search engine, appear more than 50 million tickets. I have not looked at all, but most of those who are at first say the same thing: according to science, smiling, even if it is for no reason, brings happiness. The emotion is that the gesture itself, that is, the extension of the lips towards the sides and the elevation of the cheeks and the curling of the eyes.

Many also explain why this effect, citing scientific research, and to a lesser or lesser extent agree that it has to do with neuronal mirrors. Thanks to these neurons, when we see others doing something (picking, picking up an object...), in our mind that action is represented as if we did it. Therefore, neuronal mirrors are the basis of empathy and imitation and are necessary for the development of adequate human relationships. Thus, the tendency to laugh is due to those neuronal mirrors, seeing someone with laughter, even when someone is ourselves.

The reference experiment that shows the relationship between the gesture of laughter and the emotion of happiness is ancient. Made by Strack, Martin and Stepper almost twenty years ago, it is still the most cited.

Now, however, Strack, Martin and Stepper have tried to resume this research in 17 laboratories in Europe and the United States and with almost 2,000 people, whose authors have questioned the value of the original research.

This last research has been published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science and, as they have explained, have carried out the same experiment, but with more people in different places and with a strict control of the factors that could distort the results. Result: it cannot be deduced that the gesture of the face (laughter) provokes emotion (joy). Therefore, what was deduced in that first study and what was extended in the future was not as solid as was previously thought.

In any case, the issue is not limited to this investigation. In fact, last year another group of researchers carried out a hundred experiments in psychology, with the same original situations and methodologies, obtaining the same result in less than half, while in the rest they obtained another result.

This puts one of the legs of the scientific method upside down: to validate it, research must be repeatable and reproducible, that is, it must be reproducible and always give the same result. Last year's study was published in the prestigious journal Science and the concern raised has not yet been extinguished. It does not seem that research of laughter contributes to the enjoyment of the environment.

Published in the newspaper Berria.