A beautiful smile can lighten your mood and may even inspire you to have a conversation with a stranger. Let’s say you walk into a hotel on vacation. Walking toward the receptionist, you’re met with a beautiful smile. While checking you in, the receptionist needs to make a phone call to make a confirmation. Just as she turns away to make the call, you notice her facial expression turns from a smile into what could only be described as a combination of anger and disgust. When she finishes the call, she turns toward you and the beaming smile is back. This type of smile is called the “Pan Am smile.” The smile is named after Pan American World Airways flight attendants, who were required to smile no matter what the circumstance, regardless of what a passenger may do or say. This pressure to put on a smile often resulted in a forced or fake smile. The Pan Am smile only engages the muscle around the mouth called the zygomatic major. Alternatively, a genuine smile — also called the Duchenne smile — engages both the zygomatic major and the muscles around the eyes, called the orbicularis oculi. Pan American World Airways is long dead and gone, but the Pan Am smile lives on.
