Social Smiling Reading Answers

Oct 14, 2025

Social Smiling is an IELTS Reading Answer that contains 14 questions and needs to be completed within 20 minutes. Social Smiling reading answers also help you to prepare for your IELTS exam. Social Smiling consists of questions like: Does the following statement agree with the passage choose one word only and choose the correct letter.

Participants should go through the IELTS Reading passage to recognize synonyms, identify keywords, and answer the questions. Also, Social Smiling Reading Answers provides essential information about the development of social smiles in infants, highlighting how these expressions indicate emotional growth, social engagement, and increasing awareness. Candidates can use IELTS reading practice questions and answers to enhance their performance in the reading section.

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Topic:

A. Psychologists hoping to unlock the secrets of human emotion have focused on infants, as young babies can provide indicators of early emotional growth and development. Among these changes are modifications of facial expressions that provide cues for determining how an infant's reaction to a given experience or situation conveys meaning. Infants' facial expressions are particularly useful for understanding the nature of human emotion because they have not yet been significantly conditioned by social norms and conventions; the lack of social conditioning is perhaps best expressed when infants smile, which makes this facial expression an especially interesting object of study.

B. The most fundamental type of smile in infants is the endogenous smile, which can occur in the first week following birth and is usually associated with sleeping. Endogenous smiles happen automatically due to unconscious changes in the nervous system and are not caused by external stimuli - such as tickling or a pleasing sound - is known as an exogenous smile. Exogenous smiles occur when the infant is awake, and they begin to appear by the second or third week of life.

C. An important type of exogenous smile is the 'social smile', which, as its name suggests, arises through social interaction.

The social smile is particularly associated with grinning in response to seeing the faces of mothers and other caregivers as well as hearing their voices. Yet social smiles also occur in interactions with strangers, and the term may even be extended to describe how an infant smiles at inanimate, though familiar, objects like teddy bears. According to psychologist Daniel

G. Freedman, generalised social smiles develop by the end of the first month, and at around five weeks old, selective social smiling begins. It is in this selective stage that the child learns to smile in response to familiar faces.

D. Experts view the social smile as a strong indicator of infants' growing curiosity and a higher level of engagement with their surroundings. It follows, therefore, that the social smile, as one of explicit interaction, also indicates a child's growing awareness of himself or herself as a distinct individual and active agent in a social environment. Of crucial importance is what is known as social referencing, in which an infant looks to his or her caregiver before reacting to a situation.

Many studies have revealed that around seven months of age, infants begin to become scared of strangers and often show fear or distress when encountering unfamiliar faces. However, a study by the psychologists Feiring, Lewis, and Starr revealed that by fifteen months, babies were cautiously attentive to their mother's response to strangers. In an experiment, the researchers found that if the mother smiled at a stranger, the baby was far more likely to smile.

E. Technically, some experts solely use the term social smile for smiles that involve only the zygomaticus major muscles, which are responsible for raising the corners of the lips. If smiles are accompanied by open mouths and contraction of the orbicularis oris muscles - movements that make the outer corners of the eyes wrinkle - they are said to be

'emotional' smiles. This view is partly a result of reductionistic attempts to directly connect human emotions with anatomical movements, which have been proved to be incorrect. One example of this was Paul Eckman's Facial Action Coding System (F ACS) which attempted to give emotions an objective basis and allow investigators to identify emotional expressions without cultural bias.

F. According to this method of analysis, the social smile is primarily a false smile. This argument has some merit because the social smile can happen even in the absence of emotion. Infants sometimes merely imitate what they see, and the social smile at times may be nothing more than an attempt to get some form of support from the mother. And it is well known that the social smile continues into adulthood. It is common to use a social smile in numerous social contexts in a way that may be fake. For instance, imagine a grown person receiving a birthday present that is a huge disappointment.

Rather than expressing a true emotion via a frown, the person receiving the gift is far more likely to smile.

G. The difficulty with distinguishing 'social' from 'emotional' smiles, however, is that there is a broad spectrum of facial expressions and emotional states between the two extremes. Certainly, a smile can be both social and emotional at the same time. Viewed this way, social smiles can vary tremendously in the extent of emotion they convey, from simple grins that may show a less intense emotion to fuller smiles involving the whole face that are displays of pure joy.

Questions 27-31

Choose ONE WORD ONLY for each.

ANALYSING AN INFANT'S SMILE

• Infants' facial expressions reveal the essence of 27 ……………..

Answer: emotion

Supporting statement: "Infants' facial expressions are particularly useful for understanding the nature of human emotion..."

Keywords: facial expressions, emotion

Keyword Location: Paragraph A, line 3

Explanation: The passage explains that infant facial expressions provide insight into early emotional development, making them valuable indicators for understanding emotion in its purest form, as they are not yet influenced by societal expectations or conditioning.

• No social conditioning makes studying infants more revealing

ENDOGENOUS SMILE

• Occurs in the week after birth

• Most often related to 28…………….

Answer: sleeping

Supporting statement: "The most fundamental type of smile in infants is the endogenous smile, which can occur in the first week following birth and is usually associated with sleeping."

Keywords: endogenous smile, sleeping

Keyword Location: Paragraph B, line 1

Explanation: The endogenous smile is described as one that typically happens when the infant is asleep, indicating it is not a response to social interaction but a natural bodily function early in life.

• Result of 29………… that are not conscious in the nervous system

Answer: changes

Supporting statement: "Endogenous smiles happen automatically due to unconscious changes in the nervous system..."

Keywords: endogenous, unconscious changes, nervous system

Keyword Location: Paragraph B, line 2

Explanation: These types of smiles are involuntary and result from internal neurological activity, rather than being triggered by any external interaction or environment.

EXOGENOUS SMILE

• Set off by an outside 30……………..

Answer: stimulus

Supporting statement: "Exogenous smiles... are not caused by internal processes but external stimuli..."

Keywords: exogenous, external stimuli

Keyword Location: Paragraph B, line 3

Explanation: Exogenous smiles differ from endogenous ones by being a response to something outside the infant, such as a sound or a face, marking the beginning of socially driven responses.

• Happens when an infant is awake

• Starts in the second or third week of life

SOCIAL SMILE

• A type of exogenous smile

• Comes about through social 31...............

Answer: interaction

Supporting statement: "An important type of exogenous smile is the 'social smile', which, as its name suggests, arises through social interaction."

Keywords: social smile, social interaction

Keyword Location: Paragraph C, line 1

Explanation: The social smile is specifically tied to social environments and is triggered by interpersonal engagement, including responses to caregivers and even objects like toys.

• Common when infants see their mothers

Questions 32-33

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? Write

YES - if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO - if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN - if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

32. The social smile is evidence of an increasing self-awareness in infants.

Answer: YES

Supporting statement: "...the social smile... also indicates a child's growing awareness of himself or herself as a distinct individual..."

Keywords: social smile, self-awareness

Keyword Location: Paragraph D, line 2

Explanation: The paragraph discusses how the emergence of social smiles shows that an infant is developing awareness of themselves in relation to others, signifying increasing self-consciousness and identity formation.

33. Smiles should be categorised according to anatomical movements.

Answer: YES

Supporting statement: "Technically, some experts solely use the term social smile for smiles that involve only the zygomaticus major muscles..."

Keywords: smiles, anatomical movements

Keyword Location: Paragraph E, line 1

Explanation: Experts have tried to classify smiles based on muscle movement, illustrating that anatomy has been a criterion for differentiating emotional expressions, even though such distinctions can be reductionist.

Questions 34-36

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? Write

YES - if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO - if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN - if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

34. The Facial Action Coding System is widely used by researchers.

Answer: NOT GIVEN

Supporting statement:

Keywords:

Keyword Location:

Explanation: While FACS is mentioned, the passage doesn't provide details about how widely it is used today, so we cannot determine the current prevalence or acceptance of the system among researchers.

35. The social smile only occurs when there is emotion involved.

Answer: NO

Supporting statement: "...the social smile can happen even in the absence of emotion."

Keywords: social smile, absence of emotion

Keyword Location: Paragraph F, line 2

Explanation: The social smile does not always indicate real emotion and may simply be a mimicry or social tool. This is especially seen in both infants and adults who use smiling to gain attention or fit in socially.

36. Telling the difference between social smiles and emotional smiles is easy to do.

Answer: NO

Supporting statement: "...there is a broad spectrum of facial expressions and emotional states between the two extremes."

Keywords: distinguishing, social, emotional smiles

Keyword Location: Paragraph G, line 1

Explanation: The author points out the complexity of smiles and indicates that many smiles are hybrids of emotional and social cues, making it hard to cleanly separate them into categories.

Questions 37-40

Reading Passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-G.

37. mention of an infant reacting to its mother's interaction with a stranger

Answer: D

Supporting statement: "...if the mother smiled at a stranger, the baby was far more likely to smile."

Keywords: infant, mother, stranger

Keyword Location: Paragraph D, last line

Explanation: This line describes a situation where infants mirror their mother's response to unfamiliar individuals, suggesting early forms of emotional referencing in social settings.

38. a reference to an infant smiling at nearby objects

Answer: C

Supporting statement: "...the term may even be extended to describe how an infant smiles at inanimate, though familiar, objects like teddy bears."

Keywords: infant, objects, teddy bears

Keyword Location: Paragraph C, line 3

Explanation: This supports the idea that social smiles can be directed at objects that are part of the infant’s familiar environment, not just people.

39. mention of the particular muscles involved in certain smiles

Answer: E

Supporting statement: "...social smile for smiles that involve only the zygomaticus major muscles..."

Keywords: muscles, zygomaticus major, orbicularis oris

Keyword Location: Paragraph E, line 1

Explanation: The paragraph discusses specific muscles involved in different types of smiles, such as those controlling the mouth and eyes, linking anatomical movement to expression.

40. an example of a person reacting to getting a gift

Answer: F

Supporting statement: "...a grown person receiving a birthday present that is a huge disappointment... the person receiving the gift is far more likely to smile."

Keywords: gift, disappointment, smile

Keyword Location: Paragraph F, last line

Explanation: This example shows how social smiles can be disingenuous, used to maintain politeness even when the emotion felt is negative.

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