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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Extra ordinary people


There are few things that stand the test of time.
True love, natural intelligence, reverence, humility, grace, optimism, kindness and sympathy.

A person that embodies these things and allows them to manifest is truly rendered an exceptional human being. Their greatness may not be recorded in history books but their “extra”-ordinary presence is felt by all they encounter.

When you come across one these people you know it. They are usually smiling! We are drawn to them. They offer us an alternative model. We can go about our daily lives in the manner we are used to, or we can learn from them. They taught me that smiles are contagious. This holds true in any social setting. Try it. The next time your in a meeting or just having a casual conversation with someone inject a few glowing smiles. You'll be surprised at what happens.

According to an article from the Publication: Communication Reports
The effect of smiling on helping behavior: smiling and good samaritan behavior.

"The positive effect of smiling on interpersonal attraction and perception is well established in the psychosocial literature. Adding a smile to the photograph of a face leads to more favorable perception of the target, and this effect was found on multiple personality dimensions. Lau (1982) reports finding that when smiling, a target was perceived to be more intelligent than the same, nonsmiling, target. Otta, Pereira, Delavati, Pimentel and Pires (1993) report that they found that a smiling person receives more positive scores on the dimensions of leadership, optimism, sincerity, and kindness. A smile also enhances helping behavior toward the smiling person. Tidd and Lockard (1978) report that patrons in a bar give significantly larger tips to a waitress who approached them with a broad smile than to one with a minimal smile. In a similar vein, Solomon et al. (1981) report that a smiling confederate in a large department store receives more help than a nonsmiling one.

The effect of smiling on helping behavior is well established, but the factors that explain this effect still remain in question. One possible explanation is that a positive perception of the solicitor, mediated by his/her smile, could predispose the subject to comply with his/her request. Research connecting perception of the solicitor with helping behavior has found that positive perceptions of the solicitor increases helping behavior (Takemura, (1993). For Tidd and Lockard (1978), who have found that a smile by a waitress enhanced her tips, the result was explained in terms of reciprocal altruism. Patrons gave the waitress larger tips to reciprocate the better service of the waitress. For Solomon et al. (1981), the effect of smiling is explained in terms of anonymity. When a stranger smiles at the subject, he/she becomes identifiable and thus is more likely to receive help than is a control subject who did not smile and thus is more anonymous."

Interesting!

Psychology’s Dale Jorgenson has done some fascinating work in this field.
He states:
"smiling at others may benefit the smiler in that, when you smile at people, they are more likely to smile at you. The more often this happens, the better the mood of the smiler."

A smile is also a universally understood language.

According to Jorgenson
"Facial expressions, throughout history, have been one of our primary means of communication of our feelings about other people. The fact we recognize facial expressions almost universally as implying certain things offers evidence about how useful they are,” he said. “We are happy to see somebody smile but our interest fundamentally is in knowing whether they are happy with us. As long as we have to make decisions about whether people are friends or foes, we need a way to do it quickly and easily and from a distance. Facial expressions represent a quick and simple way of knowing these things.”

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