Americans smile more than Chinese. Fact, not just an anecdote.
In the paper highlighted this week Thomas Talhelm, Shigehiro Oishi and Xuemin Zhang from the universities of Chicago, Virginia and Beijing Normal respectively studied not only photographs but set about observing students on campuses in Virginia and Beijing to record smiling.
The difference between smiling students in China and the U.S. was remarkable. Nearly 50% more of the Americans were observed smiling for apparently no reason. No Chinese were observed smiling alone.
The difference was also observable in I.D. photos but another interesting feature emerged here. Although Americans were observed smiling more in their pictures all women generally smiled more than men.
The paper leaves the reader in a rather unsatisfactory limbo at the end by failing to provide a robust theory as to what explains these differences. What’s almost certainly the case is that smiling is not directly linked to happiness or a general sense of well-being. More likely some cultural bias is at work about what smiling is seen as signalling.
The researchers conclude more work is required. More indeed.
You can access the paper in full via this link Who Smiles While Alone?
Happy Sunday.