Your Happiness Factor

Eye contact (Photo credit: Gabriela Sellart ) To be happy, we need to feel recognized and acknowledged by others. This helps us to feel part of a group and we all need that for our well-being.  If we feel unrecognized and excluded, we can feel miserable and we can go on to feel stressed. But the recognition and acknowledgement we need can be as simple as a smile or even as little as eye contact alone. The journal of the Association of Psychological Science , Psychological Science , has published a study that demonstrates how important a very simple acknowledgement can be. Eric.D.Wesselmann of Purdue University carried out a study with colleagues at the University. The study tested the effect of very simple eye contact between a research assistant and people on a well-used path on the campus. The research assistant didn't even need to smile to have a notable effect.  Those with whom the assistant made eye contact were questioned afterwards and commented that