What’s in a Smile?

By Leslie Pitner, DDS

 

A smile is one of the most powerful ways we have to connect with other people. Having a smile you are confident to share can change your life in unexpected ways! Here are 10 amazing facts about a smile I have discovered in my research.

1) A smile is the only outward way we have to express positive emotions such as joy, love, and curiosity.

2) You can see a real smile in someone’s eyes. Contracting the eye muscles is the marker of a true smile (called a Duchenne smile by scientists). Which of these celebrities is giving a true smile?

 

 

It’s George Clooney on the left in his yearbook photo.

3) A true smile changes your brain by activating the left frontal portion of the brain – the very same part activated during emotions of happiness, contentment, and joy. Smiling creates a great feedback loop of happiness!

4) A true (Duchenne) smile in a yearbook photo can predict your happiness 25 years later. Researchers have found people who were smiling in their college yearbook photos felt more competent, experienced fewer negative emotions, were more likely to be happily married, and were more satisfied with their lives 25 years later.[1]

5) Smiling can make you live longer. A study of photos of major league baseball players from the Sporting News Baseball Register compared non-smilers, partial smilers, and true (full) smilers. Controlling for other factors such as weight, education, and marital status, they found that full smilers, on average, lived 7 years longer than the non-smilers! [2]

6) Smiling and experiencing positive emotions makes you smarter. In a study of 6 and 7 years olds, the children were asked to take a portion of a standardized intelligence test after being read one of two stories. The stories were the same, but one ended on a sad note, while the other had a happy ending. The children who heard the happy story got 50% more questions correct than the children who heard the sad story. [3]

7) Smiling can create more success at work. Psychologists observed people at their jobs and found that those who smiled more often were rated more highly by their employers and made more money. [4]

8) Smiling can get you hired. Many companies, especially for jobs where you interact with people such as sales, note how often a candidate smiles during a brief interview as a screening tool. At Holiday Inn, you must smile at least 4 times in an interview in order to be hired. [5]

9) Smiling faces are more attractive. Researchers used computer graphics to manipulate identical faces to be more attractive and/or express more happiness with a smile. Less attractive, but smiling faces were seen just as or even more attractive as the more attractive, but non-smiling faces. All faces were seen as better looking when smiling. [6]

10) People with attractive smiles are perceived to be more successful, kinder, more intelligent and happier than people with less attractive smiles. [7]

 

 

References

1. Harker, L. and D. Keltner, Expressions of positive emotion in women’s college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 2001. 80(1): p. 112-124.
2. Abel, E.L. and M.L. Kruger, Smile Intensity in Photographs Predicts Longevity. Psychological Science, 2010. 21(4): p. 542-544.
3. Rader, N. and E. Hughes, The influence of affective state on the performance of a block design task in 6-and 7-year-old children. Cognition & Emotion, 2005. 19(1): p. 143-150.
4. Staw, B.M., R.I. Sutton, and L.H. Pelled, Employee positive emotion and favorable outcomes at the workplace. Organization Science, 1994. 5: p. 51-71.
5. LaFrance, M., Lip Service: Smiles in Life, Death, Trust, Lies, Work, Memory, Sex, and Politics. 2011, New York: W.W. Norton.
6. Golle, J., F.W. Mast, and J.S. Lobmaier, Something to smile about: the interrelationship between attractiveness and emotional expression. Cogn Emot, 2014. 28(2): p. 298-310.
7. Beall, A.E., Can a New Smile Make You Look More Intelligent and Successful? Dental Clinics of North America, 2007. 51(2): p. 289-297.

 

 

About Dr. Leslie Pitner

Dr. Pitner has built a reputation as one of the most innovative orthodontists in the Southeast. Her practice, Pitner Orthodontics, serves the Columbia and Chapin communities, but she has patients coming from all over the US. Leslie Pitner majored in art and received her undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1990. She completed her master’s degree in art history at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. She then attended the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry and graduated with honors. Her training in art directly translates to her orthodontic practice by allowing her to utilize her eye for beauty and detail and bring that passion to each patient’s smile.

While in practice, Dr. Pitner completed a unique master’s degree program in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She uses this element of her education to encourage patients to grow in their strengths through the challenges of orthodontics and enjoy the positive power of a smile. Dr. Pitner has broad interests from traveling and public speaking to driving her own race-car. www.drpitner.com