Say cheese, smile big, and stay married long

William Atkins
Friday, 17 April 2009 18:01

Science - Biology

A U.S. study has found that the people who smile the biggest in photographs when they are young are more likely to stay married later in life. The frowners were more likely to divorce.


The researchers of the study are Matthew J. Hertenstein, Carrie A. Hansel, Alissa M. Butts, and Sarah N. Hile, of the Touch and Emotion Laboratory (TEL) at Depauw University in Indiana.

They sent emails to about 18,000 college graduates, and used the ones that sent back a completed online questionnaire and a picture from their high school yearbook.

Some of the questions asked about their marriage, such as if they were in a committed relationship and if they had ever divorced.

The researchers eventually used 225 women and 124 men in their study. They had graduated between 1948 and 2005 with ages ranging from 21 to 81 years. Based on a “smile intensity score” (from 1 to 10) the researchers evaluated the biggest smiles and the most downturned frowns.

In one part of the study, the researchers found that the biggest smilers had never divorced, while the ones with the smallest smiles had divorced almost 25% of the time.

In a second part of the study, people over the age of 65 were asked to give the researchers a photograph from their childhood. The researchers found that 11% of the people with the biggest smiles had divorced, while 31% of the non-smiling (weakly smiling or frowning) people had divorced.

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