By Stephanie Pappas, Senior Writer

Published: 11/13/2013 08:02 AM EST on LiveScience


Feeling happy? Go ahead and smile — but know that you may be telling others more about yourself than you think.


The meaning of a smile changes depending on the social context, studies show. Some smiles bring benefits, but others reveal hidden weakness. Humans smile more depending on who they're talking to, and those smiles can hint at their futures.


Without further ado, here are five things your smile tells others about you.


1. Will your marriage last?


Wedded bliss may be linked to an easy grin. According to a study published in 2009 in the journal Motivation and Emotion, the way people smile in old photographs predicts their later success in marriage[1] .


In one study, psychologists rated people's college yearbook photos for smile intensity (muscle stretching around the mouth and eyes). They found that none of the biggest grinners divorced later in life. In comparison, 25 percent of the most straight-faced experienced divorce.



A second study of childhood photos of people over age 65 found a similar link. Among those with the biggest smiles in the childhood pictures, 11 percent later experienced divorce, compared with 31 percent of the least smiley.


A bigger smile may reflect a happy-go-lucky approach to life, the researchers reported. Or bigger smiles may attract a happier partner, and lead to a happier relationship.


2. How fertile are you?


A healthy smile can reflect your overall health, multiple studies show. For women, smiles can even reveal fertility.


Women with gum disease take an average of two months longer to conceive[2] than women without, according to research published in 2009 in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. Gum disease is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, respiratory disease and kidney disease. The link appears related to increased inflammation that accompanies gum disease, the researchers found.


3. How much earning power do you have?


A teenager's grin can predict how much cash he or she will rake in as an adult. According to a study published in 2012 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, happy teens earned 10 percent more income than average[3] at age 29, while gloomy adolescents earned 30 percent less than average at that age.


Happiness is likely linked with fewer worries and less stress, study researchers reported. Less worry means more mental space to focus on job-related tasks.


4. How powerful are you?


Smiles aren't just about happiness. They're also a sign of social status[4] . A 1998 study in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that high-powered people, as well as people interacting with others of equal power, smiled when they felt happy.


In contrast, people with less social power than the person they were interacting with smiled regardless of their own emotions.


The findings suggest that powerful people have the privilege of smiling when they please, whereas those with less power are obligated to smile in order to ingratiate themselves. [5 Surprising Ways to Banish Bad Breath[5] ]


5. How good a fighter are you?


The link between smiles and power holds in the physical realm, as well. In one study, professional mixed martial arts fighters who grinned in photographs taken the day before a match were more likely to lose than fighters who presented a tough mug for the camera.


Fighting is about dominance, and smiles may inadvertently signal that a person is less dominant, hostile or aggressive[6] , researchers reported online Jan. 28, 2013, in the journal Emotion.


Even untrained observers caught on to the message in the smiles, the same study found. People viewed a fighter as more trustworthy and agreeable, but less aggressive and less physically dominant, if they saw him smiling versus posing with a neutral expression.


The takeaway? Smiles grease the social wheels in most situations, and happiness is usually a boon. But if you're going head-to-head in a contest of dominance, put your game face on.


Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+ . Follow us @livescience , Facebook & Google+ . Original article on LiveScience[12] .[7] [8] [9] [10] [11]



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  • Be curious.


    Being curious is the best way to become more insightful, says Klein, and a lack of insight often comes from being in a passive and disinterested state of mind. "Curiosity is another engine of insight," says Klein. "People who get insights see something that's a little bit off, and instead of ignoring it, they're curious about it. Curiosity keeps our mind engaged to work out the implications."




  • Let your mind wander.


    A <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/04/the-benefits-of-daydreaming/" target="_blank">2012 psychological study</a> found that daydreaming -- passive though it may seem -- actually involves a very active brain state, which is why the wandering mind can sometimes stumble upon brilliant insights and sudden connections. The researchers credit this phenomenon to the fact that daydreaming correlates with our ability to recall information in the face of distractions. Recent <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201102/why-daydreamers-are-more-creative" target="_blank">neuroscience research</a> has also found that daydreaming involves the same brain processes involved in imagination and creativity. "I worry about people who spend all their empty time when they're not in conversations listening to music or podcasts or things like that, and not leaving any space to just daydream," says Klein.




  • Pay attention to coincidences.


    "Be more alert to anomalies," Klein says, "rather than quickly explaining them away and staying in your comfort zone." We tend to ignore coincidences or not think much of them, because they're often meaningless, says Klein. But looking for coincidences is a powerful way to make surprising connections. "There's a belief that correlation doesn't imply causality, which is true. People see all sorts of correlations in coincides that turn out to be spurious, so they get a bad reputation," Klein says. "But in my work I find that a lot of insights are fed by people spotting coincidences and making assumptions, and instead of just saying 'It must be true,' doing to follow-up work to find out if it's true."




  • Look closely at contradictions.


    Insights can occur when we encounter ideas that don't make sense to us. Questioning contradictions is another path to epiphanies. Whereas curiosity makes us wonder, contradiction causes us to doubt -- and it can be another powerful way to gain insights. "Our tendency when we hit a contradiction that involves things we believe we understand well is to say, 'Well, that must an anomaly.' We have a marvelous set of techniques for explaining away inconvenient facts," says Klein. "The contradiction only leads to an insight when people take it seriously enough to explore it a bit."




  • Act on your insights.


    Daydreaming isn’t the only state of mind that can lead to insights. "I've found a number of examples where people were under tremendous pressure and came up with marvelous insights," says Klein. "We should embrace urgency." This urgency forces people to look at things they'd otherwise ignore (what Klein refers to as "creative desperation"), and when they gain an insight, encourages them to act on it right away. This is frequently how chess grand masters try an unusual move that ends up being successful and winning the game for them. "The problem with too many organizations is that they don't feel any pressure to act on the insights they've had," says Klein. "They act like they have all the time in the world and then they end up going out of business."