Category: Social psychology

Both sexes unconsciously do the same thing when they meet someone they are attracted to.

Both men and women unconsciously lower their voices when they are attracted to someone, new research finds.

Men, in particular, keep their voices low to indicate their interest.

Surprisingly, women also lower their voices when speaking to the most attractive men.

For the study, 30 speed daters met in a cafe, half men, half women.

The researchers monitored voice pitch and asked everyone who they were attracted to.

The study’s authors explain that men lowered their voice when attracted to a woman:

“…men lowered the minimum pitch of their voices when interacting with women who were overall highly desired by other men.

Men also lowered their mean voice pitch on dates with women they selected as potential mates, particularly those who indicated a mutual preference (matches).

Women also lowered their voice when attracted to a man:

“…although women spoke with a higher and more variable voice pitch toward men they selected as potential mates, women lowered both voice pitch parameters toward men who were most desired by other women and whom they also personally preferred.”

Women, though, were more discerning in their choice: only lowering their voice for the most attractive men.

The study was published in the journal The Royal Society Proceedings B (Pisanski et al., 2018).

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).

People ranked the most desirable characteristics in a partner for the survey.

The four traits people look for in a partner are kindness, easygoingness, intelligence and physical attractiveness, new research finds.

In a twist on these familiar findings, though, people can have too much of some these traits, the psychologists also found.

People who are too intelligent and too easygoing are less attractive.

It may be because intelligence can make other people insecure and being too easygoing might be a bad sign.

Dr Gilles Gignac, the study’s first author, explained:

“Previously published research suggests that elevated levels of intelligence may incite feelings of insecurity in some people, which may reduce desirability.

Correspondingly, exceptional easygoingness may be viewed as an indication of a lack of confidence or ambition.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 383 people in Australia.

They were asked to rank the most desirable characteristics in a partner.

Once a potential partner was in the top 10% for IQ or easygoingness, they became less attractive.

However, being in the top 10% for physical attractiveness and kindness was not detrimental, although desirability ratings did not increase at this level.

Dr Gignac said:

“So, on average, there doesn’t appear to be any gain to being exceptionally kind or exceptionally physically attractive in the context of attracting a romantic partner.”

A minority of people are especially interested in the highly intelligent, the research showed.

However, the research could not pinpoint what type of people these were.

It certainly wasn’t more intelligent people who preferred other more intelligent people — which is what you would expect.

Dr Gignac said:

“This result is surprising, considering there is assortative mating for intelligence that indicates a correlation between people in a romantic relationship having similar intelligence levels.”

The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology (Gignac & Starbuck, 2018).

The effect of hot people on your cognitive abilities, revealed by research.

People become cognitively impaired in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex, research finds.

The drop in intelligence is particularly strong for men.

The more attractive the woman, the more men’s test scores plummeted, psychologists found.

It may be because men are so concerned about making a good impression that they have few mental resources left over for anything else.

The study involved people talking to members of the opposite sex before completing cognitive tests.

Both sexes performed worse on the tests when they were trying to make a good impression on the other person.

It made no difference whether or not they were already in a relationship or single.

However, men were more often struggling to make a good impression, so their cognitive powers weakened the most.

Impression management is no easy task for the human brain, as the authors explain:

“…leaving a favorable impression on an opposite-sex partner may not always be easy.

Impression management requires careful monitoring and modifying of one’s own behavior to optimize the overall impression an individual wants make on the interaction partner, making it an effortful and cognitively demanding endeavor.

Research by Vohs and colleagues (2005) suggests that impression management indeed generally requires relatively high levels of cognitive control.”

The study was inspired by an experience of one of the study’s authors:

“Some time ago, one of the male authors was chatting with a very attractive girl he had not met before.

While he was anxious to make a good impression, when she asked him where he lived, he suddenly could not remember his street address.

It seemed as if his impression management concerns had temporarily absorbed most of his cognitive resources.”

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (Karremans et al., 2009).

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).