People who smile a lot are usually happier, have more stable personalities, more stable marriages, better cognitive skills and better interpersonal skills, according to research.
Science has just uncovered another benefit of a happy face. People who have big smiles live longer.
Researchers at Wayne State University used information from the Baseball Register to look at photos of 230 players who debuted in professional baseball before 1950.
The players’ photos were enlarged and a rating of their smile intensity was made (big smile, no smile, partial smile). The players’ smile ratings were compared with data from deaths between 2006 and 2009.
For those players who had died, the researchers found longevity ranged from an average of 72.9 years for players with no smiles (63 players), to 75 years for players with partial smiles (64 players) to 79.9 years for players with big smiles (23 players). The study is published in the journal Psychological Science.
This isn’t a bunch of psycho- hooey, the authors said. Smiles reflect positive emotion, which has been linked to both physical and mental well-being.
But did they account for each team’s winning records? Maybe the nonsmilers were thinking about batting averages.
Los Angeles Times
