Psychology of laughter

One psychologist, called P.Ekman wanted to find out if all people smile the same all over the world. He found one tribe in Africa, that have been never heard of white people, radio or television, so they didn’t have an opportunity to see how other people can smile. So Ekman took those tribe people friendly faces and came back to USA. The smiles in USA and Africa were the same. He didn’t stop and made more research and separated 19 types of smile. 18 of them are insincere, they become like masks, when we don‘t want to show out true feelings. There is only one type of a real smile, when mouth lifts up, eyes are squinted and others. Only this smile reflects real joy. This smile was called Duchenne smile. The biggest influence is made by Musculus orbicularis oculi, that makes the smile so special. You can‘t fake this eye muscle, so you can‘t fake Duchenne smile as well.
A person smiles and laughs then, when he is happy. The research show that happiness is related to specific areas of the brain. Psychologists claim that those people who have the right side of the brain more active, are more pessimistic, untrustworthy. For them details can become a disaster, they tend to have depressions. People, who have left side dominated, usually are optimistics, easy going, communicative. Psychologists showed happy and frustrating extracts from movies. The reaction of people were very different, depending which side of the brain was dominating. Those, who had right side more active, were disgusted much more than the others. Although others were much more happier and laughed much more often. The blood of people with the left side domination, has more immune cells.
Talking about laughter, many years ago people believed that it can help to protect against death, old age. People tried to make a pregnant woman laugh that was going to give a birth to a child, to relax.
All these facts improves that we MUST smile and laugh as much as possible.

P.S. You can see the Duchenne smile at the end of this page

Psychology of conflicts

Everyone of us almost everyday faces conflicts. Some of them are bigger, some are smaller. The reaction to them is different as well. Some people like to conflict, some hate that and afterwards feel frustrated.
Conflicts are determined by specific signs of a body: raised voice, the heart starts to beat harder, we tremble from anger, becoming more and more pale or reddish. Sometimes we try not to show that to our opponent, in order to appear weak.
There are two basic types of conflicts : inner conflicts and outer conflicts. The first ones consist of many conflicts that are related to individual itself, for example: emotional, interpersonal, intrapersonal conflicts and the other side of conflicts is among relationships with other individuals: group, community, international conflicts. The first time, when a person starts to feel inner conflicts is adolescence - youngsters feel too many different opinions inside and tries to run away from them. Then another one of the biggest conflicts appears about 30 - 40 year old, and psychologists call it "middle age crisis".
The most interesting fact is that there are thousands of conflicts, but the sources are mostly few: biological needs, different values, different opinions, interests or psychological needs, sometimes it is the lack of reservoir. For example, let’s analyse 2 conflicts:
Brother and sister are arguing for the last piece of bread (who is going to eat that);
Two countries are fighting for the same piece of earth.
In both examples, the reason is the same and obvious: the lack of reservoir.
Other types of conflicts:
One side wins, another looses. Usually people have the attitude that either I will win or he, but the winner must be anyway. People try to do anything to overcome the opponent, but sometimes there could be only ONE winner – for example, many candidates are trying to apply for the same job, so naturally, only one will be able to work.
Both sides loose. That happens even more often that we can imagine, when both sides agree to refuse their aims. It is negative, because if the conflicting sides would try they could find better solution.
Both sides win. It is the most difficult way to find a solution, but the most beneficial. For example, the family lives needily, parents are working hard, and the children only ask money for expensive goods. The parents make a fund, where put not too much, but extra money for children and now they have to save the money, but sooner or later they will be able to buy a good they want. So both sides remain happy.
Psychologists suggest 7 steps plan to solve the conflicts:
Find out what you want personally – if you are not sure about that, the people around you are going to be more confused.
Tell your wishes to the other side – for this point, time and place is very important. If a person is already angry and you will tell him/her what you want, that can light a conflict.
Listen to the wishes of the other side
Try to find possible solutions – it is very important that both sides would tell their suggestions.
Evaluate possible solutions and choose the best one.
Materialize the solution
Still focus on that if the solution is really good – even if you chose a really good solution, they can not last forever.
To the conclusion, people should less focus on the conflicts, but better how to have better and better relationships among everybody.