Background
Dale Carnegie stated that smiling helps win friends and influence people. Research
on the effects of smiling has backed this up and shown that a smiling person is judged
to be more pleasant, attractive, sincere, sociable, and competent than a non-smiling
person.
There is evidence that smiling can attenuate judgments of possible wrongdoing. This
phenomenon termed the "smile-leniency effect" was the focus of a study
by Marianne LaFrance & Marvin Hecht in 1995. These researchers were interested
in several questions: (a) Does smiling really increase leniency? (b) Are different
types of smiles differentially effective? and (c) Why does smiling increase leniency?
(If, in fact, it does.)
This case study currently only covers questions (a) and (b). The viewer is referred
to the following article for information on Question c.
LaFrance, M., & Hecht, M. A. (1995) Why smiles generate leniency. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 207-214.