Posted on 03/01/2005 4:25:49 PM PST by srm913
The star-spangled grin Study found that women with big, warm smiles at age 21 had happier, more productive lives
DEBRA BLACK STAFF REPORTER
Be it Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and her mysterious smile, or Lewis Carroll's grinning Cheshire cat, a smile can not only light up a room, but can also reveal nationality and radiate sexual appeal, warmth, modesty and decorum, according to an American researcher.
For example, Americans and the British have two quite distinct smiles, said Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has studied the mysterious art of smiling.
An American smile is more open, genuine and warm. A British smile is one that reflects modesty, decorum and politeness, Keltner said in an interview with the Star.
And a Canadian smile, well, it may fall somewhere in the middle — a kind of hybrid of the two cultures with maybe a dash of the French thrown in for good measure. It's an interesting premise, one that Keltner said he might study in the future. But for the moment he wants to concentrate on unravelling the enigma and the emotions of a smile.
"I believe the smile emerged in human evolution as a sign of co-operativeness, friendliness and warmth," said Keltner.
For Keltner the typical American smile is best represented by Tom Cruise. His smile is big and open, conveying warmth and genuineness. The typical British smile can be found in Prince Charles, Keltner said. His smile is also warm, and it conveys happiness but also a sense of decorum and considerateness.
On the surface, the two smiles may look the same. But there is a fairly subtle distinction at play — one that only a trained observer can detect, Keltner said.
Americans tend to smile without inhibition. The grins are big, open and more expressive. There is no muscle action constraining the mouth. It all starts with the "zygomatic major muscle" that pulls the lip corners up, he explained. An American smile is often referred to as the "Pan Am smile," but can also include the muscles around the eyes — the orbicularis oculi — crinkling to indicate warmth and happiness.
The British tend to smile in a slightly different way, one that conveys a sense of modesty and deference, said Keltner, who has studied and analyzed the 43 facial muscles used to express emotion. The British often smile using the muscles around their eyes as well, but what makes their smile different is the risorius muscle, which stretches their lips sideways when they smile.
Nationality isn't really the point of Keltner's work. It's really about the smile and the emotions it conveys, including love, lust, embarrassment, coyness, pleasure and determination. For example, the love smile has a really nice openness to it and a head tilt, as well as the crinkling of the muscles around the eyes and the use of open hand gestures. The desire smile is all about lip puckers and lip licking, he said. And the embarrassed or coy smile involves glancing down, pressing the lips together and turning the head away.
"The neat thing is we have these really subtle, very fast non-verbal behaviours that convey these overall emotions."
It was only when challenged recently by a British journalist to see if he could differentiate between the two nationalities and their smiles that he found he could — with almost 100 per cent certainty.
It seems to Keltner that parts of the British culture — modesty, decorum and the constraint on free expression — are cultural concepts that do actually translate into expressive behaviour.
So what is it he can tell us about smiles? "There are a couple of big cues to look for," he suggested. "One is if you see the crinkles around the eyes and the cheek rises up — that would suggest someone is feeling true happiness or positive emotion. The second is the lip stretch. That is a sign of thinking of other people and being considerate and concerned with decorum."
Keltner, who has been studying smiling for the past 10 years, isn't alone in his fascination. His work has its roots in the research of Charles Darwin, who was one of the first to look at the expression of emotion. And since then the field has remained one of hot psychological pursuit. Last year two American psychology students found that women tend to fake smiles more than men.
Other studies that have triggered many a grin have found that there is a strong relationship between smiling and sexual attractiveness; the residents of Bristol, England, are most likely to smile back at someone smiling at them; Glaswegians are the second most receptive to smiling back when someone smiles at them; and according to another study, smiling is fundamental to healthy human communications.
And despite what you think, all smiles are not equal. Paul Ekman, a retired American psychologist at the University of California, found in the 1980s that there is a distinct difference between a polite or forced smile and a spontaneous smile.
They each produce different muscle patterns, either reflecting true delight or masking displeasure. In his work Ekman has described 17 kinds of smiles that regulate conversation. And it was Ekman and his partner who developed an elaborate coding system of the muscles in the face that has allowed Keltner to dissect and analyze smiles.
According to Keltner, whose work on smiles is coming out in the soon-to-be-released book Understanding Emotion, the average smile can be detected 100 metres away and lasts only three seconds.
What's more, a sincere smile may be the secret to a happy and productive life. Keltner studied photographs of women in college yearbooks dating back to the 1960s. Then researchers tracked them down and found that those who smiled most happily at college had had, for the most part, the happiest lives since they graduated.
"Women who had bigger, warm smiles at 21 tended to have warmer social relationships, were less stressed out on a daily basis and had more satisfying marriages 30 years later," he said. "It's all part of the idea that as you cultivate this idea of being friendly and warm you cultivate a lot of personal benefits. Over the course of 30 years they were just happier in life. I think that speaks to the benefits of being benevolent and co-operative."
With files from the Times Online and Star Wire Services
Things are a little different in massachusetts. I haven't smiled since election day, and 70% of it was my own sadistic joy of seeing coworkers huddled and weeping at a lunch table.
Who had a bigger smile than Lacie Peterson? Their theory doesn't fly with her in the formula.
But I do agree - Americans smile bigger and more often than other nationalities I have come into contact with overseas.
Just kidding about smiling...I smile alot. I'm not kidding about the curmudgeon thing though....
FMCDH(BITS)
One of the biggest shock in coming from New York to Seattle is that people smile at you when they look at you here. In New York, the only people who smile are the mentally deranged.
Really?
Before my first trip to New York, people warned me about how rude New Yorkers were.
When I got there, I was pleasantly surprised. People were businesslike, yet polite, and I was usually able to extract a smile or two from everyone.
Maybe people aren't as smiley as they are here in Kansas, but I didn't think New Yorkers were that bad.
When Paul Wellstone was killed, a woman where I was actually fell down on hearing the news. I felt sympathetic to her profound grief, but I thought it was ridiculous for somebody she had never even met. Of course, it was the death of one of her gods so she had to work through some real bad juju. I laugh at all of them today and you still see 'Wellstone" signs on people's lawns like some sort of sacred shrine. Whatever happened to a plastic statue of Mary in a little grotto made of a half-buried bath tub?
"I didn't think New Yorkers were that bad."
We're not. I think your word "businesslike" is one that most NYers would accept as accurate. Let's face it, if people in NYC were to go around being as friendly with one another as folks in Kansas, or other less populated places, that would take up the whole day.
The country is always surprised that when things go wrong in NY the whole city doesn't descend into chaos, but people in NY are quite comfortable dealing with strangers, strangers are our neighbors in NY, and as in all good places, when the chips are down, you help your neighbors and they help you.
Hubby and I live in Bayonne, NJ now. He grew up in Long Island and finds folks unfriendly, because they don't greet each other, etc. I grew up in Manhattan, and I find it a great relief. But I've gotten plenty of help from folks here, when needed.
Good Lord! This just made me realize why I have felt uncomfortable living where I live ever since I came to Mid-GA!
People don't smile at you here, and if they do, it's usually a very forced polite smile.
That's good to know, maybe I should try harder to drag a genuine one out of people 'round here more often!
What've they got to smile about? Though the Afghans, Iraqis are smiling more and soon the Lebanese will look like Jimmy Carter grinning at you.
The smile usually comes out after you are deeply involved in conversation. Here in Seattle, as soon as you make eye contact, people smile. It just feels weird.
I barf on the French.
I didn't see anyone post this recent article from the Seattle Times, which examines our reputation for having a very pleasant veneer that masks an un-social interior.
(I kinda agree with that. It explains a lot about my social life.)
I had a sense of reverse deja-vu while reading this article. I knew I'd just recently read an article in a British paper that came to the opposite conclusion... that American smiles were less genuine.
Sure enough, both articles are based on the same exact study.
This Canadian article says American smiles are more open and genuine. While this article from the London Times from a little over a week ago says the opposite:
The study by Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California in Berkeley, near San Francisco, analysed the 43 facial muscles used by humans to charm, smirk and appease.
He found the British were also more likely to raise their cheeks when they smile, showing the crow’s feet at the corners of the eyes. This produces a more sincere, hard-to-fake smile.
By contrast, Keltner found most Americans had the far less expressive “Pan-Am smile”, named after the defunct airline’s gesture of welcome.
Same study. Two articles with opposite conclusions.
Interesting.
In that case, shouldn't you have seen a lot of NewYawkers smiling?
Has anyone noticed that almost no one smiled in 19th Century photographs? Whether it is Lincoln or Jeff Davis, Grant or Lee, Darwin or Dwight Moody, Marx or Bismarck, Andrew Carnegie or the lowliest millhand, Stephen Douglass or Nathan Bedford Forrest, no one smiled when their picture was taken.
I can easily imagine the antebellum Lincoln with a broad grin on his face as he told a joke, or Robert E. Lee with a kindly smile. The photographic techniques of the times just weren't adequate to capture them.
No one smiles here in San Francisco. Bush stole the last two elections and as a result they aren't getting the free Federal dollars they deserve, that's why. ;)
Everyone except YOU, that is.
Good catch. In neither article is the researcher actually quoted on the question of which country has the more genuine smile.
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