Before I started this assignment I thought about all of the things that might happen if I were to just walk around campus and smile at anybody I walk past. During this thought process I came to the conclusion that I know that not everyone is going to smile back, some people are going to look at me like “what is this girl doing” because I am just looking at them and I might even make some people uncomfortable.Some people who don't know you but yet if you interact they might feel awkward. I also thought about the fact that a lot of people on campus including me walk around campus with just their phones in their hands and not pay attention to half of the things you would if you had to walk to class without it. But I feel that I will run into those few people who will smile back and really appreciate or maybe even are having a bad day and my smile just made their day a little bit better. With that mindset I started the assignment and walked around campus.
After my classes were over and i was ready to head home, I thought about how i thought I did today. I had smiled at a total of around 15 people on campus. It didn't matter if they were male or female, student or teacher, pretty much everyone I saw with the the thought process to smile.. When it came down to it some people reacted how I expected them to, which was to either ignore me or not even look at me. Those that did that were mostly students. When it comes down to it many college students can’t be bothered to anything other than their phone. Though, there were a few students that did smile back and those smiles were even bigger than mine. They appreciated the fact that I had taken time out of my day to smile at them and show kindness. Most of the teachers smiled back with a “I don’t know you but you may have been one of my students” smile. Which I actually found quite funny, because when you think about it none of them actually had a genuine smile. But there were a handful of teachers who did smile genuinely and did seem like they did want me and others to have a good/better day.
When I was finished with my day I had felt like a better person from smiling at so many different people. Having a “permanent” smile on my face had really given me a mood boost. It didn’t even matter to me if someone didn’t smile back at me because i figured not everyone will smile back. I mean if you think about it, just because someone smiles at you you may not smile back, its normal no a days to have that weird thought process on it. When people would smile back at me I felt good that I had made them smile so it did not bother me that some people hadn’t smiled back it was all about those cared that I had smiled at them.
During this experience I had learned different things about myself. I went into this experience thinking that “It can't be that hard for people to justs mile back”. Even though that prediction didn't come true I just have to find the right people who will appreciate my smile and even smile back. I also learned that it is exhausting having to smile at everyone all day. It takes a toll on you but it can be very rewarding. I like to make people happy and I did feel better about myself by smiling and hopefully giving someone a better day or just simply doing a nice gesture. When it comes to what I learned about others, I feel that smiling at others and being polite is a generation thing. The younger people, don’t quite get the whole being polite thing. Most of the time they are too busy being on their phones. And the older generation grew up on being polite and waving and saying hi to people they knew, I think respect has a lot to do with it as well. In the older generation the were strict on respect to your elders so you know that they would be smiling and doing nice gestures to their teachers which the teachers would obviously smile back. Today's day it's not as big and it's more about yourself and how you want to react when it comes to things.
I chose to read the article “Wanted: Contagious Gameday Staff. Testing the Effects of Smiling on Fan Responses.” Which is about gameday staff greeting customers with a smile and seeing their reaction. In this article the experimenters conduct two studies. The first one there was one person smiling at a fan who was asking for directions and in the second one the person was not smiling at the fan. In this experiment the researchers learned that smiling is a positive skill to incorporate into training. When smiling it appears more friendly which today's day in age it's a “treat others the way you want to be treated” and with having a smile your more likely to get it in return or just have more of a positive presence around.
In this article there was both an experiment and a survey, which included two studies done that helped determine this. One was a experiment because it had dependent and independent variables. The two factors investigated for possible correlational relationship are smiling at a customer. And not smiling at a customer when they ask for help, in this experiment the independent variable was not smiling and the dependent variable was smiling. In this experiment they took one picture of an employee helping out a customer by giving them directions and while they were helping they had a big smile on their face. In the other picture there was an employee helping out a customer by giving them directions but unlike the first picture there was no smile on their face. I'm sure you can imagine there would be a difference, customer service is supposed to give of friendliness. These photographs were then shown to college students to get their opinions and their background on what they think is happening. And were asked to answer questions on how they felt the fan would react in both those photos. Most of the students felt that the fan would have a more memorable experience with the staff member who was smiling. As for how I knew that there was a survey they basically come right out and say that they are doing a survey. They went to a stadium and asked about different outcome if they were greeted with a smile. The surveyors also split up getting a more aray of people that way getting more accurate responses.
There is a connection between both this article, my experience with smiling at people for one day and the approaches to psychology. One approach that fits into both the article and my experience is classical conditioning. This is connected because when we are younger we are taught that it is polite to smile at someone who you are interacting with and this isn’t something that we are just born with it must be taught first.
One approach that connects with my smile experience is the humanistic approach. This is because when I was going around and smiling at people on campus all day, I was not only looking at it from my point of view but also through the person that I was smiling at point of view also. One approach that connects with just this article is the social learning approach. This is because when you are in public you expect that those that you are interacting with or helping you or even you are helping, that they will smile as a way to show their appreciation and or kindness. We expect this because this is what we are taught from watching others interact.
In conclusion, this article on the effect that smiling has on a sports fan has a connection to my smile experience. Both have the classical conditioning approach. But they both also have their own approach those being humanistic for my experience and social learning for the article.