The findings are the result of a study conducted with 147 women with a broad range of ages, educational levels, careers and lifestyle choices. Most were of European-American descent.

The study

Participants knew they would receive a gift delivered to their home but they did not know what the gift would be. Three gifts were selected all approximately comparable in desirability and price: flowers, a gourmet fruit basket and a pillar candle. None of the recipients knew which gift they would receive in advance.

Behaviour and emotional expression of participants on receipt of the flowers were studied when they received the flowers. Three different smiles along with verbal reactions were recorded upon delivery and the information was recorded into a field computer within the first 5 seconds of the deliveries to measure immediate reactions accurately.

Three types of smile were identified..

Polite smile: this is used most commonly in quick greetings or acknowledgements. No discernable facial movement is present except the turning up of the corners of the mouth.

True smile: this is seen when there are possible changes in behaviour indicating pleasure. Hence it is called ‘true’ – the person is truly happy.

Excited smile: this smile combines two emotions – excitement and happiness. Here we see the true smile but also the eyebrows are raised so that there are high, horizontal wrinkles across the forehead.

The recordings showed that flowers elicit more ‘excited smiles’ than other gifts.

Interviews

The participants were interviewed before getting their gifts to give the research team ‘baseline’ measurements. From this researchers were able to measure how feelings changed once the gifts had arrived in their homes. In the initial interview, participants were asked to evaluate their feelings over the preceding 2 – 4 days to assess their overall feelings. Then several days after the gift was delivered participants were interviewed again to measure any changes in feelings related to having the flowers in the home. The second interview was approximately 10 days after the first.

Questionnaires

Two widely used psychological measures of well-managed intelligent emotional life were used: Diener and Lerner’s Life Satisfaction and Izard’s Differential Emotion Scale alongside a modified medical questionnaire: Everyday Illness and a specially developed Symptoms of Well-being questionnaire which covers entertaining, romance, relaxation, intimate and creative experiences.

The Findings

Regardless of the woman’s age, the reaction was universal – every recipient of flowers showed delight – but it also overshadowed the reaction of recipients to other gifts. A key finding was that in females, grinning combined with excitement, appears to be the persuasive effect of receiving flowers.

“In 25 years of emotion and personality research,” commented Professor of Psychology at Rutgers, I have witnessed very few universal results of this nature. To find that the impact of flowers on immediate smiles is universal in this study, puts it in a special category of emotional events. No emotion researcher would have predicted this.”

Happiness that lingers

Flowers have a long-term impact on emotional well-being and emotional health. They are more likely to increase a women’s reports of long-term happiness and life satisfaction for at least 3 to 4 days and heighten their sense of enjoyment whilst decreasing negative feelings.

I  mpetus for intimacy  

Flowers celebrate togetherness. – the presence of flowers led to increased contact with friends and relatives. Flowers are a gift to share and as such are placed where all can see. Flowers quite simply make people happier than they realise.