Smile as if there is no tomorrow in your college years and your marriage is likely to be a roaring success

There is two studies!

Smile intensity in photographs predicts divorce later in life

Abstract

Based on social–functional accounts of emotion, we conducted two studies examining whether the degree to which people smiled in photographs predicts the likelihood of divorce. Along with other theorists, we posited that smiling behavior in photographs is potentially indicative of underlying emotional dispositions that have direct and indirect life consequences. In the first study, we examined participants’ positive expressive behavior in college yearbook photos and in Study 2 we examined a variety of participants’ photos from childhood through early adulthood. In both studies, divorce was predicted by the degree to which subjects smiled in their photos.

Smile as if there is no tomorrow in your college years and your marriage is likely to be a roaring success.

"Based on social–functional approaches to emotion, Harker and Keltner (2001) conducted a study examining women’s yearbook pictures at an elite institution in relation to a variety of life outcomes including health, personality, and marriage. Harker and Keltner calculated the intensity of female students’ smiles in their senior yearbook photo. Throughout their adult lives, subjects completed assessments of their well-being, personality, and marriage. 

Harker and Keltner (2001) discovered that the more intense the subject’s positive expression shown in her senior yearbook picture, the more likely that she would be married by age 27 and would have a more satisfying marriage in adulthood. Furthermore, she was more likely to be more organized, content, nurturing, compassionate, and sociable than those women with less intense smiles."

Study 2 then provided less glad tidings.

"For the first time, the current studies provide evidence that the degree to which one smiles in photographs taken in early life predicts the likelihood that a person will be divorced later in life. In Study 1, photographs taken in early adulthood predicted this life outcome; whereas, Study 2 demonstrated that photographs throughout early life predicted divorce."

It might be worth noting that no gender-specific differences in smiling were found, in case you were wondering.

"Finally, both men and women emit Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles in approximately the same proportions, indicating that one gender’s smiles are no more ‘‘artificial’’ than the other’s (Brody and Hall; Hecht and LaFrance 1998)."

(PDF) Smile intensity in photographs predicts....