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Do facial expressions influence our emotional state?
Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea
English - March 05, 2023 15:25 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MB - ★★★★★ - 11 ratingsScience radio Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: The Psychology of Revenge
Next Episode: Futureproof Gold: Face Blindness & Super Recognition
When we’re happy, our bodies become flooded with dopamine and serotonin, two types of neurotransmitters in the brain; our hearts might even beat faster and maybe, we even muster a smile.
But does it work the other way? Can contorting our faces into a smile give us that chemical hit that actually makes us feel good?
Nicholas A. Coles from the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University joins Jonathan to discuss.