Smile intensity in social networking profile photographs is related to greater scientific achievements

RUNNING HEAD: SMILE INTENSITY AND SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS
© 2020, Routledge. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the final,
authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without authors' permission. The final
article is available, upon publication doi:/10.1080/17439760.2017.1326519

Smile intensity in social networking profile photographs is related to greater scientific
achievements
Lukasz D. Kaczmarek
Maciej Behnke
Adam Mickiewicz University
Todd B. Kashdan
George Mason University
Aleksandra Kusiak
Katarzyna Marzec
Martyna Mistrzak
Magdalena Włodarczyk
Adam Mickiewicz University
Corresponding author:
Lukasz D. Kaczmarek
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Institute of Psychology
89 Szamarzewskiego Street, PL-60-568
Poznan, Poland
Tel. +48 61 829 23 07, Fax. +48 61 829 21 07
E-mail: Lkacz@amu.edu.pl

Abstract
Theory and research indicates that individuals with more frequent positive emotions are better
at attaining goals at work and in everyday life. In the current study we examined whether the
expression of genuine positive emotions by scientists was positively correlated with work-
related accomplishments, defined by bibliometric (e.g., number of citations) and sociometric
(number of followers for scholarly updates) indices. Using a sample of 440 scientists from a
social networking site for researchers, multiple raters coded smile intensity (full smile, partial
smile, or no smile) in publicly available photographs. We found that scientists who presented a
full smile had the same quantity of publications yet of higher quality (e.g., citations per paper)
and attracted more followers to their updates compared to less positive emotionally expressive
peers; results remained after controlling for age and sex. Thin-slicing approaches to the
beneficial effects of positive emotionality (e.g., Danner, Snowdon, & Friesen, 2001; Harker &
Keltner, 2001) offer an ecologically valid approach to complement experimental and
longitudinal evidence. Evidence linking positive emotional expressions to scientific impact and
social influence provides further support for broaden and build models of positive emotions.
Keywords: positive emotions, smile, achievements, social networking

Highlights
• Raters coded smile intensity in photographs that were publicly available in a social
networking site for scientists.
• Scientists who presented a Duchenne smile had higher quality publications and
attracted more followers to their updates compared to less positive emotionally
expressive peers.
• This evidence provides further support for broaden and build models of positive
emotions.

Emotional tendencies evolved to organize life goals and facilitate achievements (Izard
& Ackerman, 2000). Modern theoretical models suggest that positive emotions, and their
expression, serve the function of broadening people’s mindsets, encouraging open-mindedness,
empathy, and creative thinking and decision-making (Fredrickson, 1998). Over time, this
broadened behavioral repertoire from positive emotions serves to build lasting physical,
psychological, social, and intellectual resources. In the domains of school and work, this
broadening and building from positive emotions manifests as an increase in skills, knowledge,
and career accomplishments (Boehm & Lyubomirsky, 2008; Mega, Ronconi, & De Beni,
2014). Experimental research has found that individuals who experience positive emotions are
more creative (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008; Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987), set higher
goals for themselves (Baron, 1990), and persist at difficult tasks (Sarason, Potter, & Sarason,
1986). Consequently, individuals with more frequent, intense positive emotions are at a distinct
advantage for attaining work-related success (Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2003) and in turn,
financial success (Diener, Nickerson, Lucas, & Sandvik, 2002). Noteworthy, beneficial
professional outcomes help maintain higher levels of positive emotions producing upward
spirals of positivity and achievements (Roberts et al., 2003).
Based on this social-functional account of positive emotions, researchers have used thin-
slicing approaches to examine how limited segments of expressive behavior shape or predict
meaningful life outcomes. For instance, researchers found that the quality of smiles in
childhood and college yearbook photographs predict life longevity (Abel & Kruger, 2010) and
marital status, satisfaction, and divorce (Harker & Keltner, 2001; Hertenstein, Hansel, Butts, &
Hile, 2009) decades later. In the same vein as these studies, we used ecological data, positive
emotional expressions in a social networking site profile picture, to predict meaningful life
outcomes - scholarly contributions and impact by scientists. Building upon prior thin-slicing
studies on positive emotionality, we expected scientists who presented a full, Duchenne smile

to possess greater scholarly achievements as indexed by scientific publications with a stronger
impact and more interest from other scholars compared with their less positive peers.
Method
Stimuli
Researcher profiles (N = 440) were obtained from a free social networking service for
scientists, ResearchGate (ResearchGate GmbH, Germany), with 11 million users validated by
their e-mail addresses registered at scientific institutions (ResearchGate, 2016; Van Noorden,
2014). Using an alphabetic list of user surnames, the first 10 female and 10 male researcher
profiles were selected for each letter of the alphabet. This resulted in the final sample of 220
women and 220 men aged 18-71 years (M = 38.75, SD = 11.58). Given that each variable in
our model was regressed upon five predictors, a power analyses with G*Power 3.1 (Faul,
Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) suggested that a sample of 262 would be the minimum
required to detect small effects of 0.05 with an alpha of .05 and power of .95.
Measures
Smile intensity. Three coders blind to the research questions assessed whether a
photograph displayed: no smile, partial smile (only contraction of zygomaticus major muscles
which draw the angle of the mouth upward), or full Duchenne smile characterized by
contraction of muscles around the mouth and around the eyes. The modal rating for the three
raters was used as the smile intensity score for each photograph. The interrater agreement was
satisfactory (Krippendorff’s α = .70) (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007). In our analyses, as an
indicator of positive emotional expressiveness, we compared individuals with no smile or
partial smile (coded as 0) versus Duchenne smiles (coded as 1) (Abel & Kruger, 2010; Freese,
Meland, & Irwin, 2007).
Perceived age. Because of our interest in how visual pictures influence behavior, we
measured perceptions instead of biological age. On social media, and even in everyday life,

people are rarely privy to someone's actual age; perceptions tend to influence assumptions and
usually these perceptions of age are close in chronology to biological age. Raters estimated
researcher age from their profile photographs. Moreover, this methods produces estimations
that are close to the biological age as indicated by 94% agreement between perceived and
physical age in previous research (O’Neil, Mac, Rhodes, & Webster, 2014). There was an
acceptable agreement between raters in the present study (Krippendorff’s α = .83).
Publication achievements. For each scientist, we used data available in the social
networking site regarding (1) number of publications; (2) total number of citations calculated
by referral from other publications within the site’s database; (3) citations per paper - the ratio
of total number of citations relative to the total number of publications; (3) number of reads –
number of times when a user opened or downloaded a publication; (4) reads per paper – the
ratio of reads to the total number of publications; (5) followers – the number of users who
subscribed to the publication updates of the researcher. This metric reflects how effectively the
current contribution attracts an interest in future publications. Log transformation of each metric
was used in the analyses to adjust the positive skew of the initial data.
Statistical strategy
We performed multiple regression analyses using SPSS 23.0 (Armonk, NY) and
PROCESS 2.16 macro (Hayes, 2013) with each of the six metrics of publication achievements
as outcome variables. Smile intensity was entered as a binary predictor (0 = no smile or partial
smile vs 1 = a Duchenne smile), sex as a binary predictor (0 = man; 1 = woman), age as a
continuous covariate, and the interaction of smile intensity and sex. We used R2
coefficient of
determination to calculate variance explained by the predictors and Cohen’s f 2
as the indicator
of 0.02 small, 0.15 medium, and 0.35 large effect sizes.
Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations between study variables are presented in Table 1.
Of the participants, 124 presented a Duchenne smile (28.2%), and 316 (71.8%) partial or no
smile. As expected, smile intensity was significantly related to the number of citations, the
number of citations per paper, and the number of followers after controlling for age and sex
(Table 2). Smile intensity was not significantly related to the number of publications produced
by the author or the number of publication reads. Sex and age failed to significantly moderate
the effect of smile intensity on publication outcomes. Older scientists had more achievements
with the exception of reads per paper that were higher for younger researchers.
Discussion
The present study examined whether positive emotional expressiveness among
scientists (as indicated by facial expression in their profile pictures) is related to greater
scientific contributions. Supporting previous work on positive emotionality and achievements
(e.g., Robert et al., 2003), our results demonstrated that smiling intensity among scientists is
related to better work impact (e.g., number of citations and followers) but not quantity (e.g.,
number of publications).
This finding is important because the total amount of scientific publications per year has
been increasing dramatically (Jinha, 2010). It is essential that scholars not be misled that
quantity is an important metric, rather the focus should be on high caliber, high impact work.
Our findings that positive emotionality is related to the greater overall impact of an author is
congruent with previous research documenting how positive emotions influence creativity —
the ability to produce outputs that combine novelty with effectiveness (e.g., Isen et al., 1987).
Variables in the current study provided little explanation on the willingness of other
users to open or download papers authored by the researcher. Surprisingly, reads per paper were
weakly correlated with the number of publications and citations of social network site users.
This seems to question whether higher number of reads per paper is a valid metric of scientific

contribution. Although older scientists had greater achievements and more followers, younger
scientists had higher number of reads per publication. One possible explanation of this
unexpected finding is that younger scientists might be more active social networkers and more
explicitly focused on the marketing of their work. If true, our initial evidence suggests that
marketing science on social media works, producing more interest to publications.
We found that other researchers were more likely to follow publication updates from
researchers who presented a Duchenne smile in their profile picture. This seems to be
behavioral evidence of expectations about the personal value of engaging with a researcher –
that might mean the expected delivery of relevant and valuable content in the future, or it might
be a moment of interest or enjoyment that encouraged them to explore their profile over another
in their topic of interest. It would be useful to capture the real-time search process of website
users by gaining access to their online activity. Smiling faces are perceived as friendly and
socially attractive (Naumann, Vazire, Rentfrow, & Gosling, 2009). Therefore scientists who
smile in their profile pictures may be viewed as more inviting and thus, acquire a greater number
of individuals to join their online social network. Regardless of the motives behind the smiles
in online photographs, evidence continues to accumulate that positive emotional displays are
linked to benefits that range from healthier social relationships to career accomplishments (e.g.,
Harker et al., 2001; Hertenstein et al., 2009).
Women were more likely to smile in their professional profile pictures; a finding
consistent with prior research across decades that women express more positive emotions in
photographs (Ragan, 1982; Seder & Oishi, 2012). Yet, our findings suggest that male and
female scientists derived the same benefits from positive emotionality.
There are limitations to our study. Although the validity and accuracy of thin-slicing
methodology has been validated (e.g., Abel & Kruger, 2010), other methods offer more

extensive examinations of researcher emotionality, such as the word use in their autobiography,
description of their work and their lab on publically available social media (e.g., university and
personal website, twitter). Furthermore, more in-depth metrics (beyond social networking sites)
might be used to quantify scientific achievements. Although the data used in this study are
objective, it remains a cross-sectional study where causality cannot be determined. Despite
several previous studies that indicated a causal relationship from positive emotionality to
achievements (e.g., Valiente et al., 2012), it is also likely that authors who smiled more were
happier because of their work related success and acclaim. Longitudinal studies are needed to
establish whether the positive emotion displays of scientists predict or result from scientific
achievements or both (Roberts et al., 2003). Finally, it is noteworthy, that although this research
was based on the benefits of positive emotionality, there are contexts where positive
emotionality is likely to have adverse effects and situations were negative emotions produce
beneficial outcomes (McNulty & Fincham, 2012; Schall, Martiny, Goetz, & Hall, 2016). The
current investigation scrutinized only one facet of emotionality relevant to scientific impact and
accomplishments.
Our hope is that analyses in this study motivate additional research in ecological settings
on psychological, social, and environmental factors that influence researchers and the quality
and impact of their work. This includes tests of how to improve the production and
dissemination of high caliber science. Additionally, by documenting that positive emotionality
is related to the quality rather than quantity of publications, this study can be a testament to
budgeting professional resources on great work and ignoring irrelevant indices (Jinha, 2010).
Finally, these findings suggest that online networking sites for scientists should be promoted as
a medium that increases equality in the dissemination of results by women and men (Smyth &
Nosek, 2015). The main strength of this study is that we used publicly available objective data

and documented how positive emotions manifest in scientists professional social networks and
how this thin slice of behavior is related to scientific work and their dissemination.

References
Abel, E. L., & Kruger, M. L. (2010). Smile intensity in photographs predicts longevity.
Psychological Science, 21, 542-544.
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood-
creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus? Psychological
Bulletin, 134, 779-806.
Baron, R. A. (1990). Environmentally Induced Positive Affect: Its Impact on Self-Efficacy,
Task Performance, Negotiation, and Conflict. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 20, 368-384.
Boehm, J. K., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). Does happiness promote career success? Journal of
Career Assessment, 16, 101-116.
Danner, D. D., Snowdon, D. A., & Friesen, W. V. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and
longevity: findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
80, 804-813.
Diener, E., Nickerson, C., Lucas, R. E., & Sandvik, E. (2002). Dispositional affect and job
outcomes. Social Indicators Research, 59, 229-259.
Eagly, A. H., Makhijani, M. G., & Klonsky, B. G. (1992). Gender and the evaluation of
leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 3-22.
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A. G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using
G* Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research
Methods, 41, 1149-1160.
Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General
Psychology, 2, 300-319.

Freese, J., Meland, S., & Irwin, W. (2007). Expressions of positive emotion in photographs,
personality, and later-life marital and health outcomes. Journal of Research in
Personality, 41, 488-497.
Harker, L., & Keltner, D. (2001). Expressions of positive emotion in women's college
yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across
adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 112-124.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process
analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Hayes, A. F., & Krippendorff, K. (2007). Answering the call for a standard reliability measure
for coding data. Communication Methods and Measures, 1, 77-89
Hertenstein, M. J., Hansel, C. A., Butts, A. M., & Hile, S. N. (2009). Smile intensity in
photographs predicts divorce later in life. Motivation and Emotion, 33, 99-105.
Isen, A. M., Daubman, K. A., & Nowicki, G. P. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative
problem solving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1122-1131.
Izard, C. E., & Ackerman, B. P. (2000). Motivational, organizational, and regulatory
functions of discrete emotions. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of
emotions (2nd ed., pp. 253– 264). New York: Guilford Press.
Jinha, A. E. (2010). Article 50 million: an estimate of the number of scholarly articles in
existence. Learned Publishing, 23, 258-263.
McNulty, J. K., Fincham, F. D. (2012). Beyond positive psychology? Toward a contextual view
of psychological processes and well-being. American Psychologist, 67, 101-110.
Mega, C., Ronconi, L., & De Beni, R. (2014). What makes a good student? How emotions,
self-regulated learning, and motivation contribute to academic achievement. Journal
of Educational Psychology, 106, 121-131.

Naumann, L. P., Vazire, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2009). Personality judgments
based on physical appearance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 1661-
1671.
O'Neil, S. F., Mac, A., Rhodes, G., & Webster, M. A. (2014). Adding years to your life (or at
least looking like it): A simple normalization underlies adaptation to facial age. PloS
one, 9, e116105.
Ragan, J. M. (1982). Gender displays in portrait photographs. Sex Roles, 8, 33-43.
ResearchGate GmbH (2016, November 16). Fact sheet about ResearchGate, [Fact sheet],
Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/press
Roberts, B. W., Caspi, A., & Moffitt, T. E. (2003). Work experiences and personality
development in young adulthood. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 84,
582-593.
Sarason, I. G., Potter, E. H., & Sarason, B. R. (1986). Recording and recall of personal events:
Effects on cognitions and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51,
347-356.
Schall, M., Martiny, S. E., Goetz, T., & Hall, N. C. (2016). Smiling on the inside: The social
benefits of suppressing positive emotions in outperformance situations. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42, 559-571.
Seder, J. P., & Oishi, S. (2012). Intensity of smiling in Facebook photos predicts future life
satisfaction. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3, 407-413.
Smyth, F. L., & Nosek, B. A. (2015). On the gender–science stereotypes held by scientists:
explicit accord with gender-ratios, implicit accord with scientific identity. Frontiers in
Psychology, 6, 415.

Valiente, C., Swanson, J., & Eisenberg, N. (2012). Linking students’ emotions and academic
achievement: When and why emotions matter. Child Development Perspectives, 6,
129-135.
Van Noorden, R. (2014). Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network. Nature, 512,
126-129.

Table 2. Scientific contribution and smiles in social media profiles
Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations among variables
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Smile intensity
2. Publications .04
3. Citations .16**
.64**
4. Citations/P .21**
.23**
.85**
5. Reads .03 .79**
.59**
.28**
6. Reads/P .02 -.04 .11*
.16**
.58**
7. Followers .06 .72**
.51**
.22**
.73**
.24**
8. Age .05 .51**
.37**
.22**
.32**
-.14**
.28**
9. Sex .21**
-.23**
-.09 .00 -.18**
.02 -.16**
-.25**
M 34.05 529.68 9.24 1145.75 36.19 42.98 38.75
SD 56.14 2473.67 15.35 3167.21 33.63 61.74 11.58
MLn 2.98 4.15 1.96 6.00 3.21 3.37 3.61
SDLn 1.05 2.02 0.91 1.50 0.93 0.91 0.29
Note: Smile intensity coded as no smile or a partial smile = 0, Duchene smile = 1. Sex coded
as 0 = man, 1 = woman. /P = per publication.
*
p < .05. **
p < .01.

Smile
Intensit
y
Sex Age
Smile
Intensit
y
x Sex
Smile
Intensit
y
x Age
Model
β
S
E
β
β
S
E
β
β
S
E
β
β
S
E
β
β
S
E
β
R2 F (5,
435)
f2
Publicati
ons
.24
.1
5
-
.1
6
.1
0
.51
**
.0
5
-
.2
4
.1
9
-
.1
1
.0
9 .2
8
33.14
** 0.3
9
Citations
.44
**
.1
6
-
.0
3
.1
1
.33
**
.0
5
-
.1
8
.2
1
.1
1
.1
0 .1
7
16.60
** 0.2
0
Citations
/P
.53
**
.1
7
.0
4
.1
1
.17
**
.0
6
-
.1
6
.2
1
.1
9
.1
1 .1
0
9.54*
* 0.1
1
Reads .20
.1
7
-
.1
8
.1
1
.30
**
.0
6
-
.1
6
.2
1
-
.0
5
.1
1 .1
2
11.26
** 0.1
4
Reads /P .05
.1
7
-
.0
6
.1
2
-
.16
**
.0
6
.0
4
.2
3
.0
7
.1
1 .0
2
1.85 0.0
2
Follower
s
.41
*
.1
7
-
.1
2
.1
1
.27
**
.0
6
-
.4
1
.2
2
-
.0
4
.1
1 .1
0
9.67*
* 0.1
1
Note: No smile or a partial smile coded as 0, a Duchene smile coded as 1; publications = total
number of publications; reads = number of publications opened or downloaded by other
users; followers = number of users who subscribed to receive researcher’s updates; /P = per
publication.
*
p < .05. **
p < .01.

Smile intensity in social networking profile photographs is related to greater scientific achievements

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Smile intensity in social networking profile photographs is related to greater scientific achievements

Similar to Smile intensity in social networking profile photographs is related to greater scientific achievements (20)

More from Maciej Behnke

More from Maciej Behnke (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Smile intensity in social networking profile photographs is related to greater scientific achievements