I think there genuinely are different norms for human interaction in different cultures. Why should people in "The South" be so much more famous for being insincerely pleasant than, say, people in Arizona or southern California? The climate in the deep south is absolutely miserable a large portion of the year, with oppressive head and humidity, yet they are infamous for being pleasant on the surface.
Looking at the map on this page, I see no casual correlation between how artificially pleasant a states population stereotypically is, and their suicide rate: http://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures Notice New Jersey and New York beating out any Southern state.
"Climate"<->"is superficially pleasant" is all over the board. Some examples seem to support the theory (allegedly Russia), but plenty of others seem to directly contradict it (Alaska, with a miserable climate, high suicide rate, and very outwardly pleasant people). The South has a miserable climate, have plenty to be miserable about (poverty, literacy, lingering racism, etc) yet are very 'warm' people, New York has a worse climate, yet a lower suicide rate, but yet again rather cold or distant people.
This "Russians don't smile because they are miserable. Americans smile because they are happy" stuff is just pop-psych nonsense. The real world is not that simple.
Why is it difficult to accept that different groups of people, with different heritages, cultures and traditions, might have ever so slightly different ways of presenting themselves to society and interacting with each other? It seems very implausible to me that this might not be the case.
Consider other sort of differences, besides just "smiles or doesn't". For example, consider that cultural differences with hugging, cheek kissing, hand holding, etc are all pretty non-controversial. Nobody is trying to explain that platonic friends in California don't hold hands because Californians don't make close friends like Saudi Arabians do. Anyone trying to say that would be laughed at.
Were did you get the last one from?
>Nobody is trying to explain that platonic friends in California don't hold hands because Californians don't make close friends like Saudi Arabians do. Anyone trying to say that would be laughed at.
That's because holding hands, is not a core human facial expression, unlike smiling.
On the other hand, you carry your face and its' facial expression constantly, and your expression is the most basic form of interaction you have with another person socially, with talking as distant second. Furthermore, there are few expressions, are (almost?) all are universal, like smiling and crying.
Heck, you could live in the same room with a person for a month, with all kinds of normal interaction (eating, talking, etc) and never one touch him/her, and much less in any socially meaningful way (like holding hands or hugging). Not at all like avoiding having your face seen.
We pay a price for living with terrible weather, with no sun light half of the year, where you can't get out of buildings because it is so freezing cold.
I would say what you see in places like Costa Rica(pura vida!!) is genuine happiness because people need much more the Sun and friendships for being happy than a Ferrari or whatever we could buy.