Smiling and self-presentation of men and women for job photographs

The present research studied the factors that influence the smiling behavior of men and women. It was assumed that men and women who actively engage in self-presentation use smiling as a strategy to take advantage of the expectations of others in order to realize their own goals. In the research situation, the 96 participants imagined that they wanted to obtain a certain part-time job. It was expected that gender-role expectations, the gender-typing and status of the job in question, and the importance of social contacts for carrying out the job would influence the extent to which men and women would smile for a photo to be sent with a job application. The results partly support this expectation: men and women smiled more in response to a low-status job than to a high-status job; women smiled more in response to a job in which social contacts are important than to a job in which social contacts are unimportant; and women smiled more than men in response to a feminine low-status job in which social contacts are important