The happy face of mindfulness: Mindfulness meditation is associated with perceptions of happiness as rated by outside observers

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed an enormous increase in research examining the effects of mindfulness meditation. One of the basic assumptions guiding this research is that meditation ultimately makes people happier. In this article, in two studies we tested whether meditators actually look happier. To address this question, outside raters judged the happiness of meditators and non-meditators based on a 15-s video clip of their behaviour. Study 1 demonstrated that novice meditators looked happier after an intensive 9-day meditation retreat (as compared to before the retreat), while Study 2 demonstrated that experienced mindfulness meditators looked happier as compared to controls. The interpersonal implications of these findings are discussed.

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The happy face of mindfulness: Mindfulness meditation
is associated with perceptions of happiness as rated by
outside observers
Yowon Choi
a
, Johan C. Karremans
b
& Henk Barendregt
a
a
Institute for Computing and Informational Science, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The
Netherlands
b
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Version of record first published: 20 Dec 2011.
To cite this article: Yowon Choi , Johan C. Karremans & Henk Barendregt (2012): The happy face of mindfulness: Mindfulness
meditation is associated with perceptions of happiness as rated by outside observers, The Journal of Positive Psychology:
Dedicated to furthering research and promoting good practice, 7:1, 30-35
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The Journal of Positive Psychology
Vol. 7, No. 1, January 2012, 30–35
The happy face of mindfulness: Mindfulness meditation is associated with perceptions
of happiness as rated by outside observers
Yowon Choi
a
, Johan C. Karremans
*
b
and Henk Barendregt
a
a
Institute for Computing and Informational Science, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
b
Behavioural Science
Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
(Received 4 October 2010; final version received 15 September 2011)
The last decade has witnessed an enormous increase in research examining the effects of mindfulness meditation.
One of the basic assumptions guiding this research is that meditation ultimately makes people happier. In this
article, in two studies we tested whether meditators actually look happier. To address this question, outside raters
judged the happiness of meditators and non-meditators based on a 15-s video clip of their behaviour. Study 1
demonstrated that novice meditators looked happier after an intensive 9-day meditation retreat (as compared to
before the retreat), while Study 2 demonstrated that experienced mindfulness meditators looked happier as
compared to controls. The interpersonal implications of these findings are discussed.
Keywords: mindfulness; happiness
Introduction
The past decade has witnessed an enormous increase in
research examining the potentially beneficial effects of
mindfulness meditation (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Kabat-
Zinn, 2003). Mindfulness, as defined by Kabat-Zinn
(2003), is the awareness that emerges through pur-
posely paying attention, in the present moment and
non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience
moment by moment. Moving beyond the question of
the subjective changes that take place within the
meditator, the current research addresses the question
whether mindfulness meditation affects how one is
perceived by outside observers. Specifically, we exam-
ine whether the practice of mindfulness meditation
(specifically Vipassana meditation) can cause medita-
tors to actually look happier.
Mindfulness is the English translation of the Pali
word ‘sati’. Sati is described in the Buddhist scripts as
constant presence of mind (Davids, 1881). Vipassana
meditation is a traditional Buddhist practice that
involves focusing on present-moment sensory aware-
ness in a non-reactive manner, a practice that has been
implemented in contemporary mindfulness meditation
techniques (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Development of
greater awareness of and non-reactivity to sensory
stimuli during mindfulness meditation is predicted to
enhance self-awareness such that automated non-
adaptive reactions are more easily recognized and
overruled. The ability to inhibit such automatized
responses should promote more successful manage-
ment of stressful life situations, which may ultimately
result in greater happiness.
There is research evidence to suggest that mindful-
ness meditation can indeed increase happiness of
meditators. For example, Davidson et al. (2003)
found that meditation practice was associated with
significantly greater activity in the left prefrontal
cortex, an area of the brain often associated with
positive emotional experience. A study by Smith,
Compton, and West (1995) demonstrated that even
short meditation practices can positively affect self-
reports of happiness. Also, individual differences in
mindfulness are positively associated with happiness,
and interventions that increase mindfulness relate to
decreases in self-reported mood disturbances and stress
(Brown & Ryan, 2003). Moreover, mindfulness-based
therapeutic interventions have shown to be effective in
the treatment of psychological symptoms (e.g., depres-
sion; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002; obsessive–
compulsive disorders; Schwartz, Stoessel, Baxter,
Martin, & Phelps, 1996) and physical symptoms such
as chronic pain, panic disorder, psychological hardi-
ness and coherence, immune function, and skin clear-
ing in psoriasis (Baer, 2003; Bishop, 2002; Grossman,
Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004; Kabat-Zinn,
2003).
*Corresponding author. Email: j.karremans@psych.ru.nl
ISSN 1743–9760 print/ISSN 1743–9779 online
! 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2011.626788
http://www.tandfonline.com
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An interesting question is whether meditation not
only results in increased subjective happiness, but also
whether meditators are actually perceived as happier
by their social environment, that is, whether they look
happier. This is an important issue for at least two
reasons. First, it is common to assess happiness with
self-reports, which are prone to several biases,
including self-serving biases, demand characteristics
or social desirability. In this research, outside
observers rated meditators’ and non-meditators’
happiness levels – without the observers knowing that
this study was investigating the effects of meditation.
Such ratings should be less prone to these biases.
Importantly, previous research suggests that outside
observers can be fairly accurate in judging a target
person’s happiness or mood level (Beer & Watson,
2008; Borkenau, Mauer, Riemann, Spinath, &
Angleitner, 2004). Internal mood states, including
happiness, can be objectively observed in an
individual’s appearance (e.g., through facial muscle
activity; Schwartz, Fair, Salt, Mandel, & Klerman,
1976).
Second, the perception of happiness by others has
potentially important interpersonal implications; in
general, people tend to avoid and respond negatively
towards unhappy people (Coyne, 1976; Sacco, 1999).
In other words, ‘looking happy’ may have a
profound impact on success in social life, which in
turn may benefit psychological well-being (Dush &
Amato, 2005). For example, Harker and Keltner
(2001) demonstrated that people displaying more
happiness on pictures in a college year-book were
rated more favourably on several personality
dimensions, and raters expected interactions with
them to be more rewarding. A recent study
demonstrated that happier people are perceived as
more sociable and friendly by their interaction partner,
which induces the interaction partner to be more
friendly in return (Dyrenforth et al., 2010). Thus,
increases in perceived happiness of meditators may
eventually extend to how interaction partners respond
to them.
To address the question of whether meditators
indeed look happier, we conducted two studies. Study
1 was designed to test our main hypothesis concerning
the direct impact of mindfulness meditation on outside
observers’ impression of happiness of the meditators.
We made short video clips of meditators (and a control
group of non-meditators) before and after a nine-day
intensive mindfulness meditation course, where medi-
tators train in mindfulness up to 100 h continuously.
Afterwards, these video clips were rated by indepen-
dent observers on the level of happiness exposed.
In Study 2, we compared long-time meditators with
non-meditators. Previous research suggests that, even
with short excerpts of social behaviour, outside
observers can draw fairly accurate inferences about
states, traits and other personal-relevant characteristics
(Ambady and Rosenthal, 1992).
Study 1
Method
Participants
In this study, 13 meditators participated and were
recruited as they applied for a place in a nine-day
Vipassana (mindfulness meditation) retreat in
Denekamp, the Netherlands. Among the 20 retreat
applicants, 15 volunteered to be subjects for this study,
and two were excluded for not completing the required
questionnaire prior to the retreat. All participants were
novice meditators, with a maximum of only one
previous meditation retreat. A consent letter was sent
by e-mail and completed by each of the participants
before the retreat. Meditators consisted of three men
and 10 women, aged 25–62 years (M ¼ 41.30,
SD ¼ 12.16). Thirteen gender-, age-, and education-
matched controls with no prior meditation experience
were recruited. They consisted of three men and 10
women, aged 25–63 years (M ¼ 41.46, SD ¼ 12.37). All
participants were native Dutch speakers and of
Caucasian ethnicity. The subjects received a E15
check for the participations.
Video raters (outside observers)
For the evaluation of the video clips of the subjects, 80
students from the Radboud University were recruited.
Students taking psychology courses received extra
course credit or a E5 check for participation, and
were informed that the study was about emotion and
facial expression. Members of this group are referred
to as ‘Outside observers’ (N: men ¼ 9, women ¼ 71,
age; M ¼ 21.54, SD ¼ 4.20). All raters were native
Dutch speakers and 98% Caucasian (2% Dutch-
Moroccan).
Procedure
The mindfulness intervention was a nine-day intensive
Vipassana retreat during which participants meditated
from 6:30 in the morning to 22:00 in the evening. It is
noteworthy that the intervention took place during a
winter holiday period of the Christmas and the New
Year; participants in the control condition all had
holidays.
Video clips of the meditators and non-meditators
were made before and after the retreat. These video-
tapes were later presented to outside observers who
had never met the participants before. To obtain
reliable and valid observational measures of the
participants’ behaviours, they were individually video-
taped while engaged in an approximately 7-min
The Journal of Positive Psychology 31
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structured interview with the following assignments;
introducing oneself (0 " 1–2 min), describing their lives
over the previous year and their hobbies ( "4.5 min),
and describing the weather of current day and their
activities that day (4.5–7 min). To control the environ-
ment of the videos, interviews were conducted in the
same room, with a white background screen.
The camera was angled to frame each participant
from the chest up. Each video clip was cut at the 5th of
the 7-min interview for a 15-s-length video slice
without sound (Carney, Colvin, & Hall, 2007).
Eighty students were then recruited as outside
observers (N: male ¼ 9, female ¼ 71) to rate one of two
sets of the 15-s video slices. The first set contained T1
video slices of both meditators and controls. The
second set contained video slices from T2 of both
groups. Raters were randomly assigned to only one set
of video slices, and were blind to conditions (in fact,
they did not know that the target persons consisted of
meditators and non-meditators). In this manner,
observers did not rate a target person twice (at T1
and T2), so as to prevent consistency effects. The
observers’ work stations were equipped with a com-
puter monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. Video clips
were presented in a random order. The instructions
were to carefully watch the participants in the video
slices and to answer presented questions following each
video. Raters evaluated the targets’ happiness with
three questions: (1) a 7-point pictorial ‘smiley – frowny
faces’ scale, (2) ‘I think this person looks happy’ (10-
point scale, 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 10 ¼ strongly
agree) and (3) ‘I think this person looks satisfied’
(10-point scale, 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 10 ¼ strongly
agree). The reliability of outside observer ratings for
each of the 15 s video slices was computed by means of
intraclass correlations for all the judges combined
(Shrout & Fleiss, 1979), and ranged for each item from
0.96 to 0.98. We therefore averaged scores of the raters
for each item, and then created an index of observed
happiness by averaging the three items, ! ¼ 0.97, into
one average score.
Results
To test our main prediction, namely that meditation
may lead to looking happier, an analysis of variance
revealed a significant interaction between group and
time, F(1, 24) ¼ 10.36, p 5 0.001, "
2
¼ 0.30. There were
no significant main effects of group or time, both
Fs 5 1. Within the meditator group, and in line with
our central prediction, observed happiness significantly
increased from T1, M ¼ 17.03, SD ¼ 2.82 to T2,
M ¼ 18.65, SD ¼ 2.74, F(1, 12) ¼ 5.02, p 5 0.05,
"
2
¼ 0.29. Unexpectedly, within the control group,
happiness significantly decreased, T1 M ¼ 18.52,
SD ¼ 3.02, T2 M ¼ 17.26, SD ¼ 2.86, F(1, 12) ¼ 5.66,
p 5 0.05, "
2
¼ 0.32.
We also examined whether meditators looked
happier, or perhaps unhappier, as compared to
non-meditators, both at T1 and T2 separately.
Separate t-tests revealed that at T1, there was no
difference between the meditators and non-meditators,
t(26) ¼#1.30, p ¼ 0.20. Also, at T2, there was no
difference between the groups, t(26) ¼ 1.26, p ¼ 0.21.
Discussion
Thus, we found evidence in line with our prediction
that meditation practice is associated with increases
in looking happy (although meditators did not signif-
icantly look happier than non-meditators after the
retreat). We should also mention the unexpected
finding that the group of non-meditators looked
actually unhappier at T2 compared to T1. Although
it is difficult to pin down why this was happening, there
is some previous evidence suggesting that Christmas
holidays may actually be associated with decreases in
happiness (Kasser & Sheldon, 2002). Christmas and
New Year holidays appear to be risk factors for deaths
from many diseases (Phillips, Barker, & Brewer, 2010),
for higher psychiatric admissions (Velamoor,
Cernovsky, & Voruganti, 1999), and suicide attempts
(Jessen et al., 1999). Although we can only speculate
about the reason for this drop in happiness among the
control group, it does not undermine our central
finding that meditators did look happier at T2, as
observed by strangers.
Study 2
The findings of Study 1 provided initial evidence that
mindfulness meditation is associated with observed
happiness. In line with our central hypothesis, outside
observers rated meditators significantly happier after
the mindfulness meditation retreat, based on only a
15-s video clip of their behaviour. In Study 2, we
sought to extend Study 1 by focusing on long-term
experienced and skilful meditators, examining whether
experienced mindfulness meditators were perceived as
happier compared to a control group of non-medita-
tors in their daily lives.
Method
Participants
We recruited 10 long-term meditators from the Dutch
Vipassana meditation communities, who had practised
mindfulness meditation extensively, and who were
considered and evaluated to be skilful in mindfulness
by their meditation teachers. On average, participants
had 17.1 $ 7.85 years of meditation experience. All the
32 Y. Choi et al.
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meditators have normal professions, and teaching and
practising mediation is not their livelihood, but rather
they incorporate their meditation practice into a daily
routine with a regular base practice. We recruited a
control group of healthy non-meditators with no prior
meditation experience, matched on gender and age.
Each group consisted of six men and four women, and
all participants were native Dutch speakers. All
respondents received a E10 check for their
participation.
For the evaluation of the video clips of the subjects,
46 students participated as ‘outside observers’ (age;
M ¼ 22.26, SD ¼ 5.53). They are different observers
from Study 1, and they received extra course credit or a
E5 check for participation. All outside observers were
native Dutch speakers and Caucasian.
Materials and procedure
Video clips were made and all outside observers rated
the video clips of both the 10 meditators and the 10
non-meditators, thus 20 video clips of 15 s in total that
were randomly presented. Procedure and materials
were identical to Study 1. The interrater-reliability for
each item was high, ranging from 0.96 to 0.99. The
three-item happiness scale was again highly reliable,
! ¼ 0.98.
Results
To examine our main prediction, a paired t-test was
conducted to test whether observers rated meditators
as looking happier than non-meditators. Average
scores of ratings on all videos of meditators and non-
meditators by each observer were used for this anal-
ysis. In line with our main hypothesis, the analysis
showed that outside observers rated meditators
(M ¼ 17.21, SD ¼ 1.70) as happier than non-meditators
(M ¼ 16.24, SD ¼ 1.62), t(45) ¼ 4.96, p 5 0.001,
d ¼ 0.58.
General discussion
This research investigated the relationship between
practising mindfulness meditation and an individual’s
observed happiness. In Study 1, meditators looked
significantly happier after a 9-day mindfulness medi-
tation retreat (while we did not observe this effect in a
control group); Study 2 showed that experienced
meditators were rated as looking significantly happier
than non-meditators. Remarkably, these findings are
based on the observation of behaviour in video clips of
merely 15 s. Also, observers had no idea that the study
was about effects associated with meditation. Although
it is important to note that the present findings are
based on a quasi-experimental (Study 1) and cross-
sectional (Study 2) study, which prevents drawing
conclusions about causality, together these findings
provide compelling evidence that meditation practice is
associated with looking happier.
The uniqueness of this research was that we applied
structured behavioural observations as measurements
of happiness. Almost all the prior investigations in
happiness research have mainly focused on self-report
(Kahneman & Krueger, 2006). Given that self-report
measures have methodological limitations such as
social desirability, demand characteristics and positive
illusions, the present studies provide a less biased and
more objective way to measure happiness. Self-
reported happiness ratings may be influenced by
different views among the participants as to what
happiness is. Especially, after mindfulness meditation,
people could develop different values related to hap-
piness such as a eudemonic view instead of a hedonistic
one. Whatever the view of happiness an individual has,
rating facial appearance is a consistent method that
can be maintained to assess happiness which is less
influenced by personal values.
Until now, most interest in the effects of meditation
has focused on individual experiential levels. The
present findings may have important interpersonal
implications, as an individual’s appearance provides
strong interpersonal information and social effects.
For example, even with short exposure to facial
appearance, the evaluation of faces influences our
judgements of other people, such as their likeability,
trustworthiness, competence (Willis & Todorov, 2006)
and even voting choices in elections (Todorov,
Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005). Thus, if meditation
causes happier impressions to outsiders, given the
previous findings that happy people are considered
more attractive social company (Harker & Keltner,
2001; Umberson & Hughes, 1987), meditators may
receive more positive responses in social interaction.
We should acknowledge some limitations of this
research and address some remaining issues. Our study
did not focus on the specific ingredients of meditation
practice that may make meditators look happier. For
example, one mechanism by which meditation may
enhance happiness and a happy appearance is
improved emotion regulation. Mindfulness meditation
may enhance the awareness and acceptance of emo-
tional experiences, and may help in managing intense
emotional experiences (Coffey & Hartman, 2008;
Feldman, Hayes, Kumar, Greeson, & Laurenceau,
2007). Adaptive emotion regulation in turn may result
in greater happiness, and eventually in a happier
appearance. Related to this issue, future studies should
examine the exact overt behavioural and physiological
mechanisms by which meditators look happier. The
effects of meditation may, for example, be related to
activity in facial muscles associated with happiness
(e.g., decreased corrugator, increased masseter activity;
The Journal of Positive Psychology 33
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Schwartz et al., 1976), which may give meditators a
happier facial expression.
Another interesting possibility is the relationship
between looking happy and recall during the interview.
For example, meditators may come up with more
positive memories when asked about their lives during
an interview (as in our study), and may even interpret
the (same) weather as nicer than non-meditators.
Although it is possible that these potential biases
may in turn induce a more positive mood, such biases
may especially occur as a consequence of a happier
mood (Forgas, 1995). Since our studies were not
specifically designed to test this possible mechanism
(e.g., the 15 s videos were cut at the fifth minute, so we
had no control over what exactly participants were
talking about at that point) – an interesting avenue for
future research is to examine the role of positive
memories, thoughts and judgements in the association
between meditation and (observed) happiness.
In Study 1, the meditation retreat was associated
with increased happiness after compared to before the
retreat. However, meditators in Study 1 did not look
significantly happier than controls, while in Study 2,
we did find that long-term meditators looked signifi-
cantly happier than a matched control group. This
seeming discrepancy might be explained by the notion
that more meditation experience and skillfulness of the
meditation practice would eventually lead to increased
and more sustainable happiness. In Study 1, medita-
tors indicated to have attended only one previous
meditation retreat prior to the current retreat,
although for most of them it was their first meditation
retreat. In Study 2, we specifically selected experienced
meditators, who on average had 17 years of experience
with meditation, and were judged by their teachers as
experienced. Thus, these findings suggest that while a
meditation retreat may be associated with increases in
happiness – or at least in looking happier – within the
individual, only sustained and long-term meditation
practice seems to be associated with looking happier
compared to non-meditators. It should be noted,
however, that our experienced participants may not
only have looked happier based on their experience
alone, but also on the basis of their skillfulness in
meditation (and were therefore selected by their
teachers).
Finally, we should mention another limitation that
is more generally applicable to meditation research. In
Study 1, meditators and non-meditators in the control
group did not only differ in terms of time spent on
meditation between T1 and T2, they did differ in other
ways. For example, meditators followed a very regu-
lated schedule during the nine days; they did not speak;
they were almost constantly surrounded by other
people; they probably had less sleep (as waking up
time is very early during a meditation retreat); they did
not drink alcohol; etc. Although it is encouraging that
we found similar effects across the two studies, these
differences may also have been more structural between
meditators and non-meditators in Study 2. As is the case
with many studies examining the effects of mindfulness
meditation, ideally the present findings will be repli-
cated in future studies using different populations,
different control groups and different research methods.
Finally, we should acknowledge that due to the
relatively small sample size of meditators, future
research should examine whether the present findings
generalize to different populations of mindfulness
meditators, and importantly, whether the present find-
ings generalize to other forms of meditation.
Despite these limitations, this study suggests that the
effects of meditation are not confined to intrapersonal
experiences, but may have important interpersonal
effects – a topic that has received surprisingly little
attention in the scientific literature. We hope that the
present findings will inspire future research to further
examine the long-term benefits of a happy appearance,
which are thus associated with mindfulness meditation.
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