• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

How do we know what a smile really means?

May 10, 2018
By Maureen Pratt
Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Overjoyed at the arrival (finally) of springtime? Still gladdened by this year’s celebration of Easter? Touched at the kind or encouraging word from someone close?

Feel like smiling? Well, before you do …

The simple smile is one of God’s greatest gifts, but it is also a complex nonverbal way of communicating what is going on inside of us and how we relate to others. A smile might signal a positive emotional reaction to something we experience, see or even eat. It can convey how we approach and relate to someone else, or it can be an expression of dominance or power.

No throwaway expression, the smile, but rather a powerful tool in our daily interactions with life and others. And whether we are smiling or seeing someone smile, the exchange is very connected with our culture.

Kuba Krys, researcher at the Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, noted that people in Poland seemed to smile less frequently than elsewhere in Western Europe. So, he moved his personal observation into a professional context.

“I wanted to check one explanation to this cultural difference,” said Krys. “That is, the cultural perception of smiling individuals.”

Krys worked with an international team of colleagues — psychologists and others — to develop and organize a multicontinent survey of students’ perceptions of the intelligence and honesty of individuals depicted in photographs. The subjects in the photographs, called “targets,” (representing men and women and a variety of races and nationalities) were each depicted smiling and in neutral expressions, and the same photographs were shown to all study participants, called “assessors.”

The results, published in the 2016 Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (“Be Careful Where You Smile: Culture Shapes Judgments of Intelligence and Honesty of Smiling Individuals”), revealed that the same photograph of someone reflecting a smile of enjoyment elicited different perceptions depending on the assessor’s cultural context.

For example, assessors in societies where corruption is high, were less likely to feel trust toward someone smiling. Also, the study said, “a smiling individual may be judged as less intelligent than the same non-smiling individual” if the assessor comes from a culture where there is a low “uncertainty avoidance dimension,” or, where the social groups or the government are less prone to “alleviate the unpredictability of future events.”

The act of smiling has been the subject of extensive research in the past, but many of the studies focused on subjects from what researchers call “WEIRD societies” — western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. The scope of Krys’ and his team’s study ranged much farther than Europe, surveying students in, among other places, Indonesia, Argentina, Pakistan, Philippines, Nigeria and Mexico.

The data collected from this geographic distribution enabled researchers to see that the variability in perceptions was not in geography — for example, neighboring countries like China and Japan or German and France are on different ends of the distributions of degrees of trust and perception of intelligence — but rather is highly influenced by culture.

“The data illustrate,” the study said, “that the perception of smiling individuals is culturally diversified and that, in some cultures, this generally positive nonverbal signal may have negative associations.”

In the very culturally diverse United States, we can’t assess the background of each person we meet before smiling at them!

But an awareness that not all people “read” a smile in the same way can encourage us to put action behind our expressions of joy, welcome and other positive emotions. That way, even if someone might not trust a smile, he or she can be persuaded by faith-in-action!

Copyright ©2018 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Maureen Pratt

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Our faith is not afraid of questions

Artificial Intelligence, wholeism and prayer

Question Corner: Does reception of the Eucharist replace confession?

A butterfly lands on a flowering bush with purple blossoms

A Miracle for a Baby in Rhode Island (and for all of us)

Kids need lots of people who love them

| Recent Local News |

Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

Third annual gun buyback scheduled for Aug. 9

Driver arrested after crashing into entrance of Esperanza Center

Construction underway on new north addition to St. Joseph’s Nursing Home 

Prince of Peace merges with St. Francis de Sales in Harford County

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Massacre ‘of faithful in the house of God’ in Congolese Catholic church leaves 43 dead
  • Pope welcomes young people to Rome for jubilee, thanks media for promoting truth
  • Cardinal Tomasi: Religious communities can play key roles in nuclear disarmament
  • Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man
  • Jubilee of Youth chance to celebrate hope, fraternity in world at war, panel says
  • New York archdiocese sees hundreds of responses to ‘Called By Name’ program
  • Can’t afford a Catholic college? Think again. Many offer full tuition options
  • Detroit archbishop fires theologians Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverría from seminary
  • LA archbishop, joined by business leaders, starts fund to help families affected by ICE raids

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en