In one classic study of the effect of expectations, teachers told about a group of students within their class, and told that the kids had been “discovered” as overlooked geniuses. They were told the students’ whose brilliance hadn’t shown up in their schoolwork because they’d not been challenged enough.

The teachers weren’t allowed to tell the students about this discovery, and were asked to conduct their classes as planned. The students had, in fact, been randomly selected by computer. Yet what do you think happened by the end of the year?

The students showed improve school results, improved attitude, and even–get this–higher IQ scores. In reality, of course, the students had been randomly selected by a computer. They had no particular genius, but the teachers now believed they did– and that made all the difference.

In study after study, people of all ages and walks of life have proven that they will live up — or down — to your expectations. The school-setting study was repeated in many different forms, with always the same results.

An excellent synopsis by the New York Times of the way synchronizing your body language with your conversation partners’ can get them to pick up your dropped items, support your causes, buy your product…. And more.

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Thanks to Greg Levin for bringing up this article!

Smiling affects how we speak, to the point that listeners can identify the type of smile based on sound alone, according to a study by scientists at the University of Portsmouth.

The research, which also suggested that some people have “smilier” voices than others, adds to the growing body of evidence that smiling and other expressions pack a strong informational punch and may even impact us on a subliminal level.

“When we listen to people speaking we may be picking up on all sorts of cues, even unconsciously, which help us to interpret the speaker,” said lead author of the report, Amy Drahota.

Researchers videotaped the volunteers and then categorized their smile types. It’s believed that some 50 different types of smiles exist, ranging from triumphant ones to those that convey bitterness. For the purposes of this study, however, the scientists focused on four types.

Drahota described the first as an open smile “in which the lips are drawn back, the cheeks are raised and crows-feet wrinkles appear around the eyes.” Technically this is called a Duchenne smile, which may be the truest and most intense of all.

The second smile type is like the Duchenne, only minus the “smiley eyes.” The third is a suppressed smile, “where the speaker is trying to hide their smile by pulling their lips in or down as they speak.” Finally, they denoted times when the speakers weren’t smiling at all.

The audio for the interviews was then played back to another group of test subjects. Even without seeing the speakers, the listeners were able to hear the different types of smile the speaker made as he or she went through the wacky interview.

“A voice contains a variety of acoustical characteristics” said Drahota. “It’s possible that we interpret these ‘flavours’ in someone’s voice almost without noticing.”

Thanks to Jon Koifman for bringing this study to our attention