When you smile you don’t only appear to be more likable and courteous, you appear to be more competent.

Ron Gutman is an entrepreneur and speaker known for popularizing research on the social and health effects of smiling. This line is associated with his widely viewed TED talk, “The hidden power of smiling,” in which he synthesizes findings from psychology and social perception studies to argue that smiling changes how others evaluate us in everyday interactions (e.g., in workplaces, negotiations, and first impressions). In that setting, Gutman frames smiling not merely as a politeness cue but as a signal that can shape judgments about a person’s capability and trustworthiness—an idea he presents as grounded in experimental research on facial expression and impression formation.

The quote highlights a pragmatic, social-psychological claim: facial expression functions as information. A smile does more than convey friendliness; it can act as a heuristic that leads observers to infer positive traits, including competence. The deeper implication is that “competence” is not assessed purely from performance or credentials but is partly constructed through interpersonal signals that influence credibility, approachability, and perceived confidence. Gutman’s phrasing also suggests an ethical tension: if competence can be inferred from something as simple as a smile, then evaluations in professional life may be more impression-driven than we like to admit—making emotional presentation a consequential part of social power.