• Question: why do we smile?

    Asked by theonlyexception to Alan, Murray, Sarah on 24 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Murray Collins

      Murray Collins answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      INteresting – chimpanzees tend to grimace – seemng to smile – when they are being threatened. So these forms of non-verbal communcation are ways of telling other individuals in a group how you feel, without using langauge. So smiling is a way of conveying emotions. I have written some more detailed thoughts about non-verbal communication in humans here: http://ias.im/35.275. In humans smiling is a way of conveying positive feelings, and so is probably important in relievnig tensions and forming strong pair bonds. This is crucial in complex social animals like ourselves, particulalry before we developed complex language.

      🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      The first real smile started around 20 or 30 million years ago. Charles Darwin even observed orangutans smiling at the London zoo. Baby orangutans will smile in much the same way that a human will smile, and scientists think it’s for similar reasons. Typical reasons for smiling are because something is funny, to welcome somebody, or out of surprise or excitement!!

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