An ancient smile may predict a modern divorce

A GRIM expression in a yearbook photo or family snapshot could mean more than just a passing bad mood. It could also signal that the subject is more likely to get divorced than someone with a big smile for the camera. Matthew Hertenstein and his colleagues at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana asked old boys and girls of the university to answer questions about their current sexual relationships and whether they had ever been divorced. The team then looked up pictures of their volunteers in the university’s yearbooks and graded the degree of their smiles. The less a person smiled, it turned out, the more likely he or she was to have been divorced over the course of a lifetime.

This research is a dramatic example of how “thin slices” of information can predict important aspects of people’s personalities. In past studies, researchers have shown that with very limited information—less than half a minute of interaction, the viewing of a video clip or just a look at a photograph—people can make accurate predictions about others’ sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, teaching ability and personality.

Dr Hertenstein was following up research which had shown that the women who smiled most in their college photos were most likely to be married by the age of 27, among other things. He wanted to see if the same held, over the longer term, for divorce. His study, to be published in Motivation & Emotion, looked at three groups. The first, of 306 people, came from alumni of the psychology department. The second group, of 349, was recruited from general alumni. The third, of 55 people, was recruited from the town. (In the last case, people were asked to send in photos of themselves, but were not told that the study was about smiling.) The researchers rated the photos of the subjects on a scale of two to ten. They also asked their volunteers various questions, including whether they had ever been divorced.

The relationship between smiling and divorce also held up among townspeople, even though many sent photographs of themselves as children. Facial expression predicted divorce even when the smile or frown was on a ten-year-old’s face. A photograph that records a split second from a lifetime is a very thin slice indeed. How could it predict a divorce decades in the future?

The researchers suggest that the smiles are accurate indicators of personality. The results should not be overstretched. The never-divorced had their smiles rated on average at 5.9, 5.9 and 5.2 out of 10 in each of the three groups, while the divorced scored 5, 5.3 and 4.4. That is not a huge difference, but it is statistically significant. On the other hand, comparing only the lowest-scoring people with the highest-scoring, the least-smiling were three times more likely than the biggest smilers to divorce.

Until the findings are replicated it is probably too early to choose a spouse based on a facial expression in a photo. On the other hand, it would not hurt to smile for the camera yourself.

一張老照片上的表情也許可以預測最近的離婚

年鑒上照片上或者家庭合影上一個難看的表情也許不僅僅代表了一時的心情不爽。黑著臉照相的人也許比照片上滿臉笑容的人更容易在將來離婚。就職于印第安那州DePauw 大學的Matthew Hertenstein和他的同事找來了學校的一幫男生女生做了一項研究。參與者會被問到一些問題，包括最近的性生活狀態以及是否有過離婚史。研究人員隨后找來了這幫被調查學生往年的年鑒照片，然后對老照片上的表情按照笑容的燦爛程度打分。結果顯示，一個人照片上的笑容分越低，在以后的人生中離婚的幾率也越高。

研究結果很有意思的表明了從照片中的信息可以看出一個人的性格。在以往的研究中，研究人員發現，僅僅需要很少量的信息片斷，例如雙方不到30秒的交談，看一個對方的視頻片段，或者僅僅是看一看這個人的照片，都可以判斷出對方的性取向，社會地位，經濟狀況，講說能力和個性。

Hertenstein博士在隨后的研究中，發現在學校的照片中笑得比較燦爛的女生最有可能在27歲結婚。他同時想知道照片是否能對其他的事情做出類似的預測，例如離婚。他在《動機與情感》雜志上發表一篇研究報告。報告對三組人群做了研究。第一組是從心理學系校友錄中找來的306名畢業生，第二組是在其他專業的349名畢業生，第三組是在鎮上找來的55個居民。（最后一組的居民被要求帶來自己的照片，但并未告之要研究他們的笑容。）研究人員對照片上的笑容按2-10分打分。同時要問被調查者一些問題，還是關于他們是否離婚之類。

笑容和離婚之間存在的微妙關系同樣也存在與鎮上的居民之間，盡管很多人送來的都是他們小時候的照片。甚至從10歲時照片上的笑容或者是皺的一個眉頭都能夠預計一個人的離婚。然而一張照片上記錄的只是一個人一生中短短的一瞬間，薄薄的一張照片怎么能預計十年后的一次離婚呢 ？

研究認為，笑容是衡量一個人性格的精確指標，當然這樣的研究結果也不能被過分夸大。在三組研究中，從來未離過婚的人笑容得分分別為5.9，5.9和5.2，然而離婚者的得分為5，5.3和 4.4。這并不是很大的差距，但是從統計學的角度來講卻有很明顯的不同。另一方面看，僅僅比較最低得分組和最高得分組，笑容最少的人離婚的幾率是笑容多的人的三倍之多。

當然，僅僅憑笑容來選擇配偶還是太早了，但是在照相的時候多露出點笑容總不是件壞事。