What is worse psychological science, when it shows what everyone already knew (people who look sad on average feel sadder than those who don’t) or when it “proves” nonsense that no one may ever accept?
On the latter, an Israeli-Canadian duo has now published that smiling will make you look … older. In the News: Smiling for the camera makes you look older, Smiling makes you look older, Israeli researchers find, Study: The effects of smiling on perceived age defy belief. Sure, and the moon is made of cheese.
They didn’t leave it at that. After the subjects rated someone smiling older than someone serious, they (wrongly) remembered that they looked younger when smiling. From that must stem the common erroneous “wisdom” that smiling must make you look younger. Really.
And then they found that people look their very youngest when they look very surprised, because then all the creases, lines and wrinkles flatten out. Pull the other leg — it has bells on it.
Never mind how implausible, the media gobbled it up as if the greatest wisdom has been revealed. Don’t pause — publish! Googling today can find you already at least dozens of links to this nonsense from outlets the world over. The chutzpah of the researchers payed off. They declared with great confidence that they have found the truth and others were just mistaken. Then that must be true, no?
How to investigate this, and show where it went wrong.
1. The piece makes fun of popular knowledge which differs from their findings. However, that is the wrong reference for a supposedly scientific article. It should have compared its findings with what colleagues have found before. They do that in a sort of afterthought:
They quote from 2015: Study: Smiling makes you look older, the Israeli researcher is quoting himself. That’s a great way to find agreement.
Then they quote from 2011 (they wrongly date it 2012): In the news: Smiling Makes You Look Younger, Smiling Can Make Women Look Three Years Younger, Reveals Study, Study: Let Me Guess How Old You Are: Effects of Age, Gender, and Facial Expression on Perceptions of Age by a German-US duo – a much larger study, more subjects and more issues, comparing: angry, fearful, disgusted, happy, sad and neutral expressions. They found: “the age of faces displaying happy expressions was most likely underestimated.” Of course.
Then they quote from 2016: In the news: Want to Look Younger and Thinner? Smile!, Study: Be Happy Not Sad for Your Youth: The Effect of Emotional Expression on Age Perception by three US scientists. They found that people who look sad are judged older and who look happy are judged younger than with a neutral expression. Of course.
Now, this new study performs a fantastic trick. It says: Since there is no agreement (between themselves and others) the literature on the subject “is inconsistent” and so there is room for bringing something new. Never mind that they bring the outlier data compared to what others found, and that they should explain the difference.
2. When scientists find different results from other, they should first try to question their own findings. That is science. Not as done here, only play down the findings of others. That is not science. That is politics.
3. I tried to establish if the new study was published in a peer-reviewed publication, but I have not found such description of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Yes, it commits itself to abide by the “Committee on Publication Ethics,” which sounds impressive but that only deals with authorship – not scientific fraud or incompetence. Yes, it has an impressive editorial board, but that doesn’t mean that any of them would review articles before publication!
Now, let us do some of the work that these researchers, editors and journalists seem to have skipped.
A. Smiling is greatly overvalued in the US. Middle-class USers smile when they’re suicidal. Great teeth, lousy honesty.
In contrast, Israelis hate fake, especially fake smiles. Israeli school kids will not smile for the photographer. “How can I smile when I don’t feel like smiling?” Also blank faces Israelis don’t like, but they also don’t mind them. Rather, Israelis like drama. So, shocked faces look the best to an Israeli.
B. Age is greatly undervalued in the US. When you’re old, you have had your day.
Age in Israeli is greatly appreciated, like in most world cultures different from the West.
C. Oh, yes, this thing with checking what the test subjects remembered: Israelis have no memory. I have no idea how anyone in Israel distinguishes people with Alzheimer from the rest of the population. When you ask an Israeli: Could you please repeat the last sentence you said, s/he will typically say: What did I just now say? – and have no idea. Experienced teachers in Hebrew say every sentence twice or thrice — with a different intonation but word-for-word the same. So to prove anything from Israelis’ memory is never a proof.
Therefore, you can’t just compare outlying exceptional results of Israeli experiments on smiling and age, with similar US experiments. And especially not, declare the US findings less good, just like that.
No, not the results of this new study are counter-intuitive. All of Israel is counter-intuitive. A proper interpretation of the newest findings is most likely not that smiling makes you look older, but rather that drama and old age makes you look good to an Israeli.
MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. *
As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. *
This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Of the 15 (!) books he has in mind, the next two are about homosexuality in Judaism and new rabbinics. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2600 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog that also may contain updates to Times of Israel posts, to which one may subscribe, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. *
He's getting ready to publicize books on: "Free Will, "Judaism and Homosexuality, "His parents in the Holocaust, "Judaism, "A New Torah Translation and "A New Hebrew Grammar, "Co-Counseling, "Vegan Facts, "Immortality, and more. *
Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He agrees that in a post-truth world, that's irrelevant, but then this is for the record. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. *
Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. *
Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. *
He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. *
He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. *
He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. *
His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. His posts are spell, grammar, and style polished by AI, but all written by himself. *
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His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1
