Leaders' smiles reflect cultural differences in ideal affect
2016
Cultures differ in the emotions they teach their members to value (“ideal affect”). We conducted 3 studies
to examine whether leaders’ smiles reflect these cultural differences in ideal affect. In Study 1, we
compared the smiles of top-ranked American and Chinese government leaders, chief executive officers,
and university presidents in their official photos. Consistent with findings that Americans value excitement
and other high-arousal positive states more than Chinese, American top-ranked leaders (N � 98)
showed more excited smiles than Chinese top-ranked leaders (N � 91) across occupations. In Study 2,
we compared the smiles of winning versus losing political candidates and higher versus lower ranking
chief executive officers and university presidents in the United States and Taiwan/China. American
leaders (N � 223) showed more excited smiles than Taiwanese/Chinese leaders (N � 266), regardless
of election outcome or ranking. In Study 3, we administered self-report measures of ideal affect in college
student samples from 10 different nations (N � 1,267) and then 8 years later, coded the smiles that
legislators from those nations showed in their official photos (N � 3,372). The more nations valued
excitement and other high arousal positive states, the more their leaders showed excited smiles; similarly,
the more nations valued calm and other low-arousal positive states, the more their leaders showed calm
smiles. These results held after controlling for national differences in democratization, human development,
and gross domestic product per capita. Together, these findings suggest that leaders’ smiles reflect
the affective states valued by their cultures.
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