Category: Social psychology

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).

One makes people look sexually receptive, the other more fashionable.

“Red is traditionally seen as the colour of love but more recently research has shown that both black and red are perceived as equally attractive, and that the two colours may simply increase attractiveness in different ways.While red may increase perceived attractiveness through evolutionary mechanisms, dates appear to rely more heavily on black in order to attract a potential mate, suggesting that cultural and societal influences may play a much larger role in the way people dress than the use of evolutionary signals.”

“Our results provide the first real-world demonstration that people display more red and black clothing when meeting a potential partner for the first time and it was particularly interesting to find a larger increase in the amount of black worn as this wasn’t the focus when we designed the study.”

People were shown happiness, fear, anger, disgust and surprise, as well as a neutral expression.

The most attractive facial expression for a photo is any one you like.

People judge facial attractiveness from your features, so your expression makes little difference to a photo.

Smiling is often thought to be the most attractive facial expression, which is partly why most people smile in photos.

However, this study finds otherwise.

For the research, 128 people looked at a series of pictures of both men and women shown with different facial expressions.

They were shown happiness, fear, anger, disgust and surprise, as well as a neutral expression.

The men and women were given the same ratings for attractiveness, no matter what facial expression they displayed.

Bear in mind that this study only tested people in pictures.

If you were meeting someone face-to-face, then it will clearly matter if you smile or scowl.

But even when scowling it is obvious whether someone is good looking (or not).

The study’s authors conclude:

“Since the hard tissues of the face are unchangeable, people may still be able to perceive facial structure whatever expression the face is displaying, and still make attractiveness judgements based on structural cues.”

The study was published in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (Morrison et al., 2013).

Both sexes agree on the ideal amount of makeup to enhance attractiveness, but completely misread what others want.

The amount of makeup that looks most attractive is about 40 percent less than many women use.

Whether judged by other men or women, less is more.

In other words, many women apply makeup past the point they need to in order to increase their attractiveness.

For the research, a group of students were photographed with and without their makeup.

From these, psychologists created a series of images including varying degrees of makeup.

People were then asked to look at the photos and choose the one that looked most attractive.

People also judged what might look most attractive to other people.

Makeup mistakes

The first finding was simply that people judged the pictures with about 40 percent less makeup than women typically wore to be most attractive.

However, when people tried to imagine what others would say was most attractive, an interesting bias appeared.

Both men and women thought that other people would find more makeup more attractive.

The bias was particularly strong for men.

Men thought other men were attracted to a lot of makeup, but none of them were attracted to women wearing heavy makeup themselves.

The study’s authors think that by wearing too much makeup women are trying to conform to stereotypical ideals:

“Our female observers indicated the amount of cosmetics for optimal attractiveness was lower than the amount worn by the models, who were a sample of similarly aged peers.

This suggests that while there is a sense of what is optimally attractive, it may be overlooked in order to conform to stereotyped ideals, and mistaken notions of what others will find attractive.

The study was published in the The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (Jones et al., 2014).