SMILE

1st Mar 2005 09:05 #1

Член

Study found that women with big, warm smiles at age 21 had happier, more productive lives

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."