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Home > All site sections > HR blogs and comment > HR blogs > Specialists' blog

Does smiling help you live longer?

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Peter Honey

20 Sep 2010 | 09:57

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Articles more than one month old can be viewed only by CIPD members or PM Subscribers.

Here is an incredible thing. Take an old group photograph - of a sports team for example - and ask a number of people to, without conferring, put each face into one of three categories: no smile; a half smile (mouth only); or a full smile (a proper grin with teeth showing, crinkles around the eyes, etc). This is not at all onerous and the agreements among the adjudicators will vastly outnumber any disagreements. Now find out how old each person in the photograph was when they died (this is why the photo must be an old one!) and correlate this with their smile rating.

What do you think you’d discover? Here are three possibilities:

One: That there is no correlation between longevity and smiling. The extent to which people smile when being photographed could depend on a number of factors, none of which could possibly have anything to do with how long they lived. It could be that the team has just won at whatever sport they have played and are feeling happy about that; maybe the photographer has told them that they will be inconvenienced by many takes unless everyone smiles; or someone could have just cracked a good joke.

Two: That people who didn’t smile lived longer than those who did. It is quite possible that people who choose not to smile to order are more independent and strong-willed than those who allow the photographer to cajole them into smiling. This determination not to comply could extend to the way they run their lives - perhaps they are more disciplined and better able to resist many temptations that could shorten their lives (like gluttony, smoking, being a couch potato and so on).

Three: That people with the biggest smiles lived longer than people with half smiles or no smiles. It could be that smiling broadly, despite being photographed, is an outward sign of a happy disposition. It could be further evidence that a there is a link between a positive mental outlook and physical well-being.

Or perhaps the whole thing is a nonsense; a typical example of a psychologist reading too much into an unremarkable piece of behaviour.

Well, the answer is that the research has actually been done, by two psychologists called Abel and Kruger. The average lifespan of the non-smilers was 72.9 years, the half-smilers 75 years and the full-smilers 79.9 years.

All I can say is: keep smiling!

Comments

1. At 15:53 on 21 Sep 2010, Julia Chisholm wrote:

Regardless of longevity I believe that smiling has a positive impact on yourself and those around you. It helps to develop a positive mindset. People notice those who smile - they stand out from the crowd. On many occasions I've been told I'm "too cheerful for this time of the morning / this dismal weather / a Monday". My philosophy is that if I can just make 1 person smile, it's all been worthwhile. (Oh, and by the way, I hope I reach 79.9 too!)
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