You may not have read that title correctly. People usually think we smile because we are feeling happy, but the facial feedback hypothesis claims that sensory information in your brain causes certain facial muscles to contract, creating a smile and then the sensation of smiling leads to your feelings of happiness. The physical smile comes first. The emotion comes second.
Some studies have demonstrated this using pens (for example, Strack et al. 1988). Participants were asked to rate how funny jokes were while they held a pen in their mouth – either with their teeth or their lips. If you hold a pen with your teeth the smile muscles become tense, and those participants gave the jokes higher ratings, presumably because the forced smile made them feel happier from the start.
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