Category: Social psychology

Incredibly, this smell was more attractive.

Unattached men have stronger body odour than men with partners, new research finds.

However, this could be to their advantage as it is linked to women finding them more attractive.

The stronger body odour indicates higher levels of testosterone in the body.

Women can pick up the signal from the body odour.

Along with being able to smell single men, women also found the faces of single men more attractive than those in a relationship.

For the study, 82 women rated the body odour and faces of men.

Men who had a partner got an average rating of 3 for their body odour.

Single men, though, scored an above-average 3.5 out of six.

The study’s authors write:

“Consistent with the hypothesis, single men’s BO [body odour] smelled stronger than partnered men’s BO and single men’s faces were rated as more masculine than partnered men’s faces.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Mahmut & Stevenson, 2019).

Most people do not use this simple way to make a good impression.

Emphasising the hard work involved in your accomplishments is the key to making a good impression, new research finds.

While most people like to talk about their talents, it is describing the effort involved that really impresses people.

The reason is that effort and dedication is automatically linked to warmth and relatability in people’s minds.

So, to make a good impression — whether on a date or at a job interview — don’t forget to mention how hard you worked to get where you are.

Dr Janina Steinmetz, the study’s author, said:

“A success story isn’t complete without the hard work and explanation of why we were successful.

Did the success come easy, thanks to one’s talents, or was it attained through hard work?

Both of these attributions can be part of successful self-promotion, but my research shows that emphasising effort is more likely to garner a positive impression and people really want to know the story behind your success.”

The conclusions come from three experiments in which people imagined themselves on dates and at interviews.

An analysis of what they talked about revealed that most people focused on their talents and achievements.

Few people mentioned the hard work involved.

However, describing the hard work was what really won over interviewers and potential romantic partners.

Dr Steinmetz gives two examples:

“…if you’re on a date and talking about a marathon that you recently ran, perhaps talk about all the training that helped you to cross the finish line.

Or, if you’re in a job interview and are talking about a successful project that you led to completion, include a few details about the challenges along the way, and how you overcame them.”

The study was published in the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology (Steinmetz et al., 2018).

The trick works well when other people already see you as competent.

A small mishap or blunder can make you more likable, research finds.

In the psychology study, people spilled a cup of coffee over themselves, after which people rated them as more attractive.

The blunder made people appear more human and approachable.

The trick works well when other people already see you as competent.

The authors explain that talented people are sometimes disliked by others:

“…group members who are considered the most able are not necessarily the best liked.

It has also been demonstrated that people who initiate the most ideas and are acknowledged as the best “idea” men [or women] by other members of their group are usually not the best liked group members.

[…]

A great deal of ability, in and of itself, might make the stimulus person seem “too good,” unapproachable, distant, non-human.”

Called the ‘pratfall effect’ by psychologists, it relies on the blunderer already being seen as confident.

In contrast, the incompetent blunderer is seen as less attractive after a pratfall.

So, just knocking things over, spilling drinks and slipping on bananas all day won’t do the trick!

The study’s authors write:

“Taken as a whole, these data support the contention that a blunder on the part of a superior person removes the onus of being “too good”; it increases his approachability and makes him seem less austere, more human-while a blunder on the part of a mediocre person makes him seem that much more mediocre.”

The study was published in the journal Psychonomic Science (Aronson et al., 1966).

Attractiveness is not just down to body size and shape — the way people move may be just as important.

Women who walk with small steps and a slight wiggle in their hips are seen as more attractive, a new study concludes.

Indeed, a woman’s movement was just as important as her weight and shape to judgments of attractiveness, the researchers found.

The study demonstrates that you cannot judge a person’s attractiveness from a static photo, you need to see them move.

Dr Ed Morrison, the study’s first author, said:

“Most previous research into what makes a body attractive has relied on photographs, but in real life we usually see a potential mate moving.

Motion is also crucial in courtship behaviours like dancing.

Research shows that we are more likely to find a woman attractive if she wiggles her hips and takes small steps.

Because body shape preferences vary across cultures and through history, the study aimed to find out if you take away the face, what sort of clues would people use to gauge attractiveness.

Motion capture allows us to isolate movement from body shape and compare the relative importance of the two.”

For the study, 75 people watched videos of 37 different women walking on a treadmill.

However, sometimes people were shown the original video and sometimes it was converted into points of light, like this:

Dr Morrison explained what emerged:

“The results suggested that movement is as important as static measurements in gauging attractiveness, which was surprising because everyday experience suggests you can see easily how attractive someone is from a photograph.

I’m not sure why a particular walking style is considered attractive but gait might be giving away important clues to a woman’s fitness and age – key components of reproductive health.”

Whether or not these movements can be faked is not known, said Dr Morrison:

“It would be interesting to test if people can actively change their movement to attract or deter mates – using such knowledge is similar in evolutionary psychology terms to a woman wearing red lipstick or eyeliner, both of which directly mimic signals of fertility, youth or health.”

Dr Morrison and his team are now working on what makes a man’s walk look attractive…

The study was published in the journal Visual Cognition (Morrison et al., 2018).