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Your Office Romance Could Be Given Away By Your SMILE — And It Takes Colleagues Just Two Seconds To Notice, Study Finds
- You can tell if people are romantic partners or friends just by smiling
- Laughing with a friend tends to be louder and more “pleasant-sounding”
- Romantic laughter is ‘more feminine, babyish, submissive’
When couples begin an office romance, they often do their best to keep things a secret.
But not having lunch together or avoiding lingering stares may not be enough to keep the secret from coming out, a study suggests.
Because others can tell by their smiles whether people are romantic partners or just friends, researchers have found — and it only takes a second or two to tell the difference.
Laughter with a friend tends to be louder and more “pleasant” than between new couples, according to research led by the University of Baltimore in the US.
Romantic laughter is seen as “more feminine-sounding, more babyish, more submissive,” they said.
When couples begin an office romance, they often do their best to keep things a secret. But not going to lunch together or avoiding stares may not be enough to prevent the secret from coming out, a study suggests (stock image)
The findings are believed to be explained by the “fragile love” theory — when people in the early stages of a romance aren’t sure if the relationship will last — and this “leaks out” in their laughter, said the study’s lead author. Professor Professor Sally Farley.
Laughing with friends, being relieved of the “emotional volatility and yearning associated with romantic love,” sounds more relaxed and less submissive than between new lovers, she said.
For the study, published in the Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour, Professor Farley’s team asked people to listen to audio clips of men and women calling a friend and romantic partner while being recorded.
The callers all had a romantic relationship of less than a year, to capture “early stage romantic love.”
In the first experiment, they found that listeners were able to successfully differentiate laughter between friends and between romantic partners — that is, with an accuracy beyond chance levels.
In the second experiment, the focus was on how people could tell the difference.
The last experiment replicated the findings of the first two studies with participants from different countries: India, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and the United States.
Laughter with a friend is often louder and more “pleasant-sounding” than between new couples, according to research led by the University of Baltimore in the US (stock image)
“Importantly, these three studies have shown that individuals are able to distinguish between two closely related relationship types based on just one or two seconds of laughter,” said Professor Farley.
‘[People] doesn’t sound as pleasant when they laugh with their romantic partner as it does when they laugh with their friend.
“We’re basically into speech modulation, even in terms of how our laugh sounds in early-stage romantic love, which means you’re still modulating your voice and that extends to laughter.”
“This research is important because it underscores that laughter is more nuanced, changeable, complex and socially important than most people think.” Professor Farley now wants to study the laughter of long-term couples, she said.
“Do people’s laughs sound the same when they’re together for 20 years as they do with friends?” she said.
“That would be our prediction, because we think this essentially has to do with the underlying anxiety that comes with not knowing if a relationship will continue.”