Si quiere que su jefe lo aprecie... Sonriale!

Well-being seems to have many positive effects. We hypothesize here that the demonstration of well-being, as perceived in everyday life in the professional setting, meets the main criteria defining a social norm and, thus, a normative status may be assigned to it. A norm is mainly characterized by the fact that 1) it has a positive social value, and 2) the evaluated individuals are aware of this positive value. Four groups of employees responded to a well-being questionnaire, each group being faced with one of the paradigms usually employed to demonstrate this value assignment and its awareness. The participants in the first group (30 hierarchical managers), when confronted with the legislator’s paradigm, were asked to indicate whether they appreciated (or not) a subordinate showing the behaviors proposed in the questionnaire; the employees without hierarchical responsibility (3 groups of 30 participants) were confronted with the self-presentation paradigm under 1) neutral order (group 1), that is, having to indicate with complete sincerity whether they were used to adopting (or not) the described behaviors; 2) super-normative order (group 2), responding in such a way as to be, in their opinion, appreciated by their superior; 3) counter-normative order (group 3), that is, responding in such a way as to be frowned upon by their superior. Our hypothesis was validated: hierarchical managers expect their subordinates to show well-being and employees are aware of this expectation, showing well-being both spontaneously and to give a good impression.