Small Smiles Predicts Divorce
Christopher Philip
Previous research found that a women’s yearbook picture predicted her likelihood of being happily married, to be more organized, content, nurturing, compassionate, and sociable. Specifically, the more intense was her smile, the greater she faired.
It is not clear exactly why a smile is correlated to positive outcomes, though it may be that a smile is an indication of persistent emotional tendencies. Likewise, a smile might predict outcomes, such that a person who habitually sports them, may receive better treatment from others leading to happier consequences. Over a lifetime, this may become additive.
In other words, facial expressions may serve to predict life’s outcomes.
A facial expression may predict how one views life events and even shape how they transpire.
The study of minor facial expressions that can be extrapolated to reach wider conclusions is called “thin slicing.” A thin slice, a smile, for instance, predicts much more than immediate happiness; rather, it predicts an overall attitude about life.
In this same regard, a photograph in a yearbook is a ‘thin slice’ expression of happiness because it occurs within a very tiny window.
The Current Study
In the current study, researchers lead by Matthew Hertenstein, collected and assessed yearbook photographs from alumni. The images were assessed for their relative smile intensity and then matched to two key events; whether the subject had ever been in a committed relationship, and if they had ever been divorced.
The results were as expected; smile intensity predicted whether or not the participants would later divorce.
In the second part of the study, photographs were collected from adults over the age of 55. Participants submitted photographs of themselves from the ages 5-22 years-old. The set of images included any photographs they wished from school, wedding and with family members. Again, along with the photographs, the subjects were asked if they were currently married, had ever been married and if they had ever been divorced.
The results of the first part of the study was confirmed; the less intense the smile, the more likely subjects were to be divorced.
Drawing Conclusions
“For the first time, the current studies provide evidence that the degree to which one smiles in photographs taken in early life predicts the likelihood that a person will be divorced later in life,” say the researchers.
Over two studies, the intensity of the smile predicted this highly significant life outcome. Importantly, it wasn’t photographs take from late in life such as from a yearbook, but also photographs from early in childhood which correlated to the findings.
These findings are consistent with the thought that social, cognitive, biological and behavioural processes work to mediate life outcomes.
It is quite amazing that thin slices of behaviour such as a yearbook photograph can effectively predict marriage success. Additionally, the photographs can be taken, not only from adulthood, but also from childhood, and from a variety of different contexts.
Unknown, is the exact cause of the effect. It could be that how a person processes life and the emotions life evokes is a strong predictor of how we interact with other people and bond to them through our life.
It may also be that smiling predicts how people interpret their environment and adjust to negativity in their lives and “undo” sporadic negative life events. Another possible explanation is that people seek out environments that suite their general disposition. In other words, people with positive emotions tend to seek out environments that suite their disposition. Smiles may predict marriage outcomes by indicating a desire to affiliate with others. A smile says “let’s be friends.” A lifetime of smiling shows one’s ability or desire to get along with others in a positive way naturally leading to more positive outcomes. Smiles may also create a mirroring effect in others such that a smile works in a positive feedback loop creating a happy environment.
Putting It The Research To Use
It is likely that many of the previously described effects cause and create the environment we find ourselves in. However, the key finding, perhaps one that might escape detection at first blush, is that childhood smiles predict later life satisfaction and marriage success. This is telling. It either points to an inborn quality, or an environmental one, neither of which we have any control.
True, we can control present day smiles, smiles in a yearbook photo, or a smile in any other context, but this may not be enough to produce a lifetime of success. It may bet that having good genes coupled with a healthy happy childhood is the recipe to future life satisfaction. I contend that this is so.
Though, while people are perhaps only limited in their ability to live “happily-ever-after” given their lot in life (genes and environment), people are still free to chose whom to associate with. Finding a wife or husband with an ‘intense’ smile may serve to brighten one’s day enough to produce future happiness and a successful marriage. At the very least, an intense smiler, may choose to seek out a partner with an equally intense smile if they desire a happy long-term marriage partner.
Resources
Hertenstein, Matthew J.; Carrie A. Hansel; Alissa M. Butts and Sarah N. Hile. Smile Intensity In Photographs Predicts Divorce Later In Life. Motiv Emot. 2019; 33:99-105
DOI 10.1007/s11031-009-9124-6
Harker, L., & Keltner, D. (2001). Expressions Of Positive Emotion In Women’s College Yearbook Pictures And Their Relationship To Personality And Life Outcomes Across Adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 112–124. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.80.1.112.