The many meanings of the smile

October 31, 2007 4:24 PM

I like to learn the many ways a smile might be interpreted in different countries and cultures. I'd also be interested in examples of the influencial power of a smile.
posted by JaySunSee to human relations (11 comments total)

"I never smile if I can help it. Showing one's teeth is a submission signal in primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life."
posted by sephira at 4:35 PM on October 31, 2007 [4 favorites]

This is something my ESL students have discussed in class before when we've talked about cultural differences. A couple of my students from Japan commented that Canadians (in this particular city, anyway) are always smiling at them when they pass them on the street or when they're on the bus. At first this unnerved them, because they said in Japan, only weirdos smile at other people they don't know. Or--and I found this interesting--smiling at a stranger can be a sign of aggression. But my students said they realized the Canadians were just doing it to be friendly. Eventually they got used to it and actually liked it.

Several of their Asian classmates (from China and Korea) agreed with these comments.

(This is just what a couple of my students said; I don't want to imply that I think they speak for every Japanese person.)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:40 PM on October 31, 2007

Ages ago, I was taught that in some eastern cultures, one might smile while imparting sad news so as to not further burden the recipient with the pain felt by the person doing the reporting. An example given was someone reporting a death might do so smiling . . . . I don't know if this is true.
posted by swlabr at 4:48 PM on October 31, 2007

sephira, you bring up an interesting point about smiling or grinning to the extent where one is bearing teeth, and I'd like input on that as well.

Beautiful comments thus far *grins*
posted by JaySunSee at 5:06 PM on October 31, 2007

"Another part of the answer is suggested by our findings that a number of positive emotions—amusement, relief, pride, sensory pleasure, exhilaration—share but one facial expression, a particular form of smiling (Ekman, l992b). One could argue that these are all members of one emotion family, but I expect that research on appraisal and physiology will show they are distinctive states that share a signal." here

Paul Ekman is pretty much the guy to read on this subject.
posted by 517 at 5:27 PM on October 31, 2007

I love the idea of a knowing smile, particularly where the smiler has been caught doing something they shouldn't have been.

Also and sadly my 60 something mother said something to me when she visited in September and that is how now she is old, people on the street look right through her, as if she doesn't exist at all. She said it makes her feel socially valueless.

Since then I have been looking directly at elderly people on the street, making eye contact and smiling. About half of the people I do this to just think I am a total weirdo and give me the strangest look back, the other half return my smile.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 6:02 PM on October 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

I have to thank Dwight Shrute for that quote, as it's the answer that I have now to a question I asked previously. There may be some answers there that may help you as far as business culture and smiling in the workplace, and why we feel the need to smile or request that others do so as well, especially this one.
posted by sephira at 6:04 PM on October 31, 2007

If you want an in depth view into the smile You might want to check out A Brief History of the Smile it covers historical and cultural meaning of the smile.
posted by wilde at 6:07 PM on October 31, 2007

Expressions directly affect mood. Two men doing a study on what muscles were used for various expressions discovered that days that they spent all day frowning they both went home in bad moods and were irratable and whatnot. When they spent all day smiling they would feel better.
posted by Autarky at 9:58 PM on October 31, 2007

In Russia, smiling randomly in public places means "I'm crazy and/or a chump, please milk me for whatever I'm worth."
posted by nasreddin at 9:24 AM on November 1, 2007

I have no way to confirm this, but my sociology professor once told me a story about a student that came into her office. He was from a small country, but where I cannot recall. He sat to talk to her and she smiled at him. He winced when she smiled and out of curiosity, she asked him why. He said that he was still trying to get used to the smiling in our culture (USA). In his country, someone only smiled at you when they were about to kill you!

I am sorry I have no facts. To be honest, I'm still not sure if this was true or if it was just a sociology "lesson."
posted by bristolcat at 9:59 AM on November 1, 2007