歐洲調查:英國人最愛笑 波蘭人最嚴肅
Here’s a reason to rejoice despite the nation's woes: Britons are the happiest people in Europe.
Research shows that we smile more than our continental cousins, with only the Spanish, known for their sunny outlook, and the Italians, with their love of life, coming close.
The French and Germans, some might say perhaps not surprisingly, fare poorlyin the smile stakes.
Bottom of the pile are the Poles, who it seems are twice as reluctant to crack a smile as Britons.
Piotr Szarota, a psychologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, analysed 2,000 photos accompanying internet messages sent by men and women from nine European countries.
He found the residents of Eastern bloc nations to smile less often than those in the West, with the Poles the grimmest of the lot.
However, differences in quality of life cannot fully explain the results, with France and Germany both sitting towards the bottom of the league table.
With fewer than half the French and Germans pictured smiling, they were more morose than the Slovenians and the Czechs.
This may be because, like the Poles, the French and Germans place a premium on sincerity, preferring to show their true feelings, rather than mask them with a smile.
In contrast, Dr Szarota said that Britons, who topped the table with more than 70 percent of those pictured smiling, may be too polite to show how they really feel.
儘管英國目前困難重重，但有件事可以讓大家高興一下：英國是歐洲最快樂的國度。
調查顯示，與歐洲其他國家人相比，英國人更愛笑，以樂觀開朗而著稱的西班牙人和熱愛生活的意大利人位居其後。
而法國人和德國人都不愛笑——有些人可能並不會對此感到驚奇。
波蘭人最不愛笑，他們展顏微笑的機率只有英國人的一半。
波蘭科學院的心理學家皮歐特•薩羅塔對歐洲九個國家的男性和女性在發送網絡訊息時附帶發送的2000張照片進行了分析。
他發現，東歐人不如西歐人愛笑，其中波蘭人最不愛笑。
不過，生活質量的差異不能完全解釋這一結果，因爲法國人和德國人的排名也比較靠後。
在法國人和德國人發送的照片中，只有不到一半是面帶笑容的，比斯洛文尼亞人和捷克人還要嚴肅。
這也許是因爲法國人和德國人與波蘭人一樣，都比較真誠，更願意表現出自己的真實情感，而不是爲了笑而笑。
相比之下，英國人可能是太禮貌而不願表現出自己的真實情感。在他們發送的照片中，有70%面帶笑容，位居各國之首。
Vocabulary:
in the... stakes: used to say how much of a particular quality a person has, as if they were in a competition in which some people are more successful than others （評論一個人的某種品質高或低）要是比……的話，論……
crack a smile: 展顏微笑
league table: a list that shows how successful an organization such as a sports team or a business is when it is compared to other similar organizations（排名表）
