Positive Psychology

When the whole world gets a kick out of seeing people smile … when even medical experts say it takes less muscles to smile than to frown … it’s sort of weird to know that some cultures actually frown on smiling. You know what they say … truth is stranger than fiction. And it’s true. Some societies do not encourage casual smiles. In Russia, it is said there is an old proverb that translates into something like “Smiling or laughing for no reason is a sign of stupidity.” And, this cuts both ways. When these people come visiting to the U.S., they would most often think it odd to be smiled at by total strangers. The Big Question : Why? A recent report by Kuba Krys, a psychologist at the Academy of Sciences in Poland provides some answers. His paper says that in some countries, smiling is not perceived to be a sign of warmth or even respect. It is seen to be a sign that you’re a fool, a fool out to trick people. Krys focused on a cultural phenomenon known as “Uncertainty Avoidance”. Countries which generally rate low on this scale would have their social systems (i.e. social security, health care system, safety nets, etc.) unstable and shaky. Ergo, people would view their future as being unpredictable and erratic with very little control. So, when you come right down to it, smiling being a sign of certainty and confidence, people who would smile in these places with lowly-rated Uncertainty Avoidance would look odd. After all, why would you be smiling when your future looks like an invisible vulture waiting to eat you up? You might, in fact, under these circumstances be seen as a fool or stupid for smiling. They Don’t Smile In Corrupt Countries Either  This expert psychologist went on to hypothesise that in corrupt countries, smiling would also be frowned upon. When everybody’s trying to fool you into a scam or pull one over one another, you’d never know if a person’s smiling because he’s got good intentions or because he’s trying to fool you. Testing The Theory To validate his theory, Krys had thousands of people in 44 countries judge a series of 8 smiling and non-smiling faces on a scale of honesty and intelligence. He then compared the answers against the country’s rankings on Uncertainty Avoidance for a study of 62 societies and ratings of corruption. What he found was that in countries like Switzerland, Germany, China and Malaysia, the smiling faces were rated as significantly more intelligent than those people who were non-smiling. On the other hand, in Japan, South Korea, India and Russia, the smiling faces were perceived as being significantly less intelligent. So What Does This Tell Us? It would seem that there is a strong correlation between how unpredictable a society is and the tendency to consider smiling as unintelligent. But let’s face it, at the end of the day … what have you got to lose by smiling. Smile and the whole world smiles with you!

Don’t go around believing that misery loves company. It doesn’t. You may think a lot of people who are feeling down would take comfort keeping the company of other unhappy people or even people less smarter than them. No. They don’t. In a study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, it was found that happy people are less influenced by comparisons between themselves and others. In other words, happy people, whether feeling superior or not, couldn’t care less who they spend time with. It could be with the members of the literary club or the Future Nuclear Physicists Association or some less intellectually endowed people. The Research That Backed This Up In a set of studies, a number of South Korean undergraduates (whose pre-determined levels of happiness scores were high or low) were asked to imagine they got an inferior grade on a certain test. They were then asked to envision a friend who, either scored better on the same test and had a happy disposition, or a friend who scored badly and was generally unhappy. These research participants were then requested to report whether they wanted to hang out or chill out with which friend and what their expected over-all mood would have been after spending time with either. The Findings The happy guys/gals, those who had high degrees of happiness, were keener on spending time with the friend who was “happy and scored well in the test” and felt they would have been happier, chirper after spending some time with him. On the other hand, the unhappy participants didn’t show any preference for either friend. So, what does this say? It says happy people are more likely to socialize with happy but superior, smarter friends. They are not uncomfortable with those who are more intellectually superior than them. They feel spending time with a happy friend is a much better, more rewarding decision. After all, as the research further adds, happy people are more generous, more helpful and more cooperative. They would tend to regard their friends in a more favorable light, are more attentive, pretty friendly and warmer. By and large, they have this light-hearted mood that is infectious, the benefits of which usually rubs off on us. It’s been said and proven often enough: happiness spurs success in our lives. So go out and be around happy and high performing friends. Be happy!