The Happy Couple

Here’s my March 2011 article for Positive Psychology News Daily, in it’s entirety – sorry that it’s so late!

This month focuses on new research behind the meaning of smiling, and in particular, the intriguing differences between men’s and women’s smiles.

I don’t know what it is about March but for me it’s such an optimistic month. Spring is well and truly here, the buds are appearing, daffodils blooming and gone are the long dark days of winter. Spring is also the time for love and romance – you can just picture the scene, the happy couple smiling as they emerge from the church, wedding bells ringing in the air and confetti floating like blossom on the wind.

Yearbook Smiles

Thinking about smiling, marriage and well-being, one piece of research that every student of positive psychology can reel off is the Yearbook Study, in which the genuineness (or ‘Duchenne-ness’ as Chris Peterson calls it) of women students’ smiles in their college yearbook photos predicted, 30 years later, whether they were married and scored highly on life satisfaction, good relationships and managing stress. This study by Lee Anne Harker and Dacher Keltner in 2001 is often used to illustrate the ‘build’ aspect of Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory of positive emotions – that positive emotions are about more than just feeling good, they help to build social and psychological resources too. In short feeling happy now is much more than an end in itself, it’s also an important influence on your future well-being.

One of the limitations of this research is, obviously, that its participants are all female – it used data from a pre-existing study (the Mills Longitudinal Study) – and I wonder how much it also applies to men. Do men’s smiles now predict future happy marriages and personal life satisfaction?

But What About Men?

Yesterday I accidentally came across a little snippet of new research by Simine Vazire, Laura Naumann, Peter Rentfrow and Samuel Gosling on smiling which suggests that male and female smiles don’t mean the same thing. In other words smiling reflects different emotions depending on gender. This study found that smiling is positively associated with positive emotion in women but not in men. In men, smiling is negatively associated with negative emotion. Curious isn’t it?

Equally happy?

In the study, 76% of women smiled compared to only 41% of men, although they experienced similar levels of positive emotion (measured using the PANAS – Positive and Negative Affect Scale).  In short, positive emotion is a strong positive predictor of smiling for women but not for men, and negative emotion is a strong negative predictor of smiling for men but not for women.

Different Adaptations for Men and Women?

So, if we’ve got this right it would seem that women smile when they’re happy, and men smile when…well…they’re not unhappy. In line with Jacob Vigil’s socio-relational framework of expressive behaviours (which in lay terms means that the way we express certain emotions is adaptive and motivates others to respond to us in ways which enhance our social fitness) Simine Vazire and her colleagues suggest that in women, smiling signals warmth, trustworthiness and enthusiasm to others, and in doing so attracts fewer and more intimate relationships (not sure about the fewer!), whereas in men, smiling signals confidence, calmness and a lack of self-doubt and distress, which apparently attracts numerous, less intimate relationships.

If that’s the case, then this adds some further detail to Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory. Perhaps the Yearbook Study isn’t quite as straightforward as it’s often portrayed, and the positive emotional paths to future well-being are rather more winding than direct. It would be interesting to see if a similar study of men’s smiling  or unsmiling yearbook photos resulted in similar well-being outcomes.

It’s a bit of a cliché that men complain that they don’t understand women, but to me it now seems the other way round. I mean, what is it that men do when they’re feeling happy then, if it’s not smiling? Any suggestions??

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.

Vazire, S., Naumann, L.P., Rentfrow, P.J.& Gosling, S.D. (2009). Smiling reflects different emotions in men and women. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32(5), 403 -405. Abstract.

Vigil, J.M. (2009). A socio-relational framework of sex differences in the expression of emotion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32 (5), 375 -390.

Zhivotovskaya, E. (2008). Smile and Others Smile with You: Health Benefits, Emotional Contagion, and Mimicry. Positive Psychology News Daily.

Images

The happy couple: Bride, you may kiss by e3000

Equally happy?:  Promenade in the rain by seanmcgrath

Ultimate Multi-tasking

Here’s a link to my post to Positive Psychology News Daily this month, on the subjects of happiness, busyness and holiday letters.

Please feel free to add your comments and thoughts here or on the PPND site.

Image: sha in LA

Yesterday I went to a fascinating presentation by Microsoft at a Womenintechnology event on Raising your Profile, at which the results of the recent Microsoft / Womenintechnology survey about women’s careers in the technology industry were revealed.

Some women who completed the survey felt that a glass ceiling exists in their company; perhaps it’s more common in some industries and cultures, however the message from the presenters was very clear – this is not a reason not to follow a career that you love and be very successful in it.

Eileen Brown, IT Pro Evangelist Team Manager,and fellow blogger (see here spent 10 years working as a navigating officer on Shell supertankers before joining Microsoft, so she clearly knows what it takes to succeed in a male environment. Both she, and Kate Isler,Chief of Staff for the Microsoft Online Services Group, emphasised the role of choice and responsibility in career decisions. It’s easy to forget these when you’re immersed in an organisation and especially if you seldom take the time to network externally.

I was also intrigued to hear limiting beliefs mentioned several times; many people allow themselves to be defined by their beliefs, even when they’re unhelpful and can be changed. Uncovering what your beliefs are is a good first step to transforming them into something more useful.

At the panel debate and Q&A session afterwards, Salma Shah, Director of SN Training, talked about the importance of creating a consistent personal brand, not in the sense of something manufactured, but by building on your strengths and letting people know what you’re about.

And Terry Thorpe, CTO of the Centre for Integral Transformation , and also a blogger (and whose blog looks spookily like ours… see here, mentioned the importance of networking as a way of doing the job you currently do, not as an add-on, or something that gets done after hours. I think this is a really critical part of business success – in the sense that it’s the only way to let other people know who you are as a person, and what you stand for.

Finally, I liked what Paul Norris, Microsoft EMEA Director had to say about being yourself, being genuine and being human. Often in the cut and thrust of business we can forget that success is due to people. You can have a great product or service, but without great people you’ll get nowhere. Getting the best out of your people, and allowing them to play to their strengths, is what will make your team and your business succeed.

What initially struck me about the CWM was the sheer energy in the room, even before the main debate got underway. About a quarter of the delegates were new to the network, the atmosphere warm and welcoming, in sharp contrast to the rather solemn surroundings.

The panel, made up of

• Aliza Blachman O’Keeffe (Executive Coach with Eden McCallum)
• Jane Atkinson (PR and image consultant, former spokesperson for the late Diana, Princess of Wales),
• Stuart Higgins (ex-editor of the Sun and now MD of Stuart Higgins Communications), and
• Neville Hobson (VP New Marketing for Crayon and blogger-extraordinaire),

contrasted traditional and new media contexts in a lively and engaging way, drawing on their personal experience and including many anecdotes to illustrate their points of view.

And what also intrigued me was the contrast between the way ‘old’ and new media works, with the latter having an unforeseen level of impact on every aspect of PR and personal branding, as well as on society more generally.

* In traditional media (newspapers and mainstream TV) it may take several months or even years to carefully craft the ‘right’ public image. With new media (basically anything delivered using the internet), this might be achieved within days or even hours.

Business people might dismiss this as only relevant to the world of celebrity, but the point is that personal and corporate reputations can be improved or tarnished in just the same amount of time.

In addition, your (or your company’s) public image can even be created or affected without your agreement or knowledge. We were advised by Neville Hobson to google our own names when we got home – whilst we may not be able to change what is out there in the public arena, at least we can be aware of it. Forewarned is forearmed.

It seems that the rewards for getting it right can be enormous, but the risks are equally large.

* The way new media works dictates that authenticity is crucial. When you’re in the public eye (voluntarily or not), if you’re not authentic you’ll be found out and exposed, and probably sooner rather than later. So why is authenticity so important?

* Well, authenticity is linked to trust, and new technology has contributed to a huge change in the nature of trust in society. According to Neville Hobson, we are more likely to trust ‘a person like me’ than our politicians or the media. It seems that we are now prepared to trust people we’ve never met and probably never will, simply because we got talking to them in an internet chat-room, or liked what they had to say on a blog. Therefore, if you want to create a professional image which is trusted and respected, be authentic.

There were several questions to the panel along the lines of “given what we’ve heard about the dangers, should I try to establish a personal brand at all?” Stuart Higgins quoted an example of a very high profile woman whose reputation has been enhanced by the fact that she has resolutely kept quiet at public engagements. It works both ways. The key is to know what you’re going into and to adhere to the simple rules.

And what of the business world? Well, the Edelman Annual Trust Barometer states that

Trust has important bottom-line consequences. In most markets, more than 80% [of respondents] say they would refuse to buy goods or services from a company they do not trust, and more than 70% will criticize them to people they know, with one-third sharing their opinions and experiences of a distrusted company on the Web.

So companies are not immune from the issues surrounding authenticity and trust.

According to Edelman, “To build trust, companies need to localize communications, be transparent, and engage multiple stakeholders continuously as advocates across a broad array of communications channels’

For another perspective on this CWN event, see writer Yang-May Ooi’s blog.

Other reports and surveys about the nature of trust :

Reuters survey

Public trust and confidence in charities – Nov 05

Public Affairs News – Democratisation of Trust

IEEE Communications Society – Survey of Trust in Internet Applications – 2000

Trust Us – Survey of Corporate Sustainability Reporting