Happy smiling men are consistently rated least attractive by women when compared to proud or brooding men, according to a new study from the University of British Columbia.
The finding, published today (Tuesday) in the journal Emotion, goes a long way toward explaining the sexual allure of dark characters such as the brooding Twilight vampire Edward Cullen or the tortured and shamed Jim Stark in James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause.
The finding lends credence to the idea that women “shop” for genes for their offspring from the most successful males they can find.
“Women are more attracted to men who aren’t smiling and who look proud, which could have a genetic basis,” said UBC psychologist Jessica Tracy. “It could signal high status, which would be adaptive in terms of mating.”
A high status man is perceived to be better able to protect his offspring, an effect that is consistent across cultures, she said.
“But this is the first study to look at how attractive each emotional expression is,” Tracy said.
Men who thought they might attract a mate with a happy friendly picture might want to consider updating their online profiles.
“In real life for the most part we make judgements about how sexually attractive someone is in person and a lot goes on in addition to how they look,” Tracy said. “However, in the world of online dating many decisions are made based on that single photo.”
Tracy and her research partner graduate student Alec Beall had 1,000 adults rate the attractiveness of people in photographs displaying either pride, happiness, shame or a neutral expression.
In men, happiness was consistently rated by women as the least attractive expression.
"No women, no matter what their age, found smiling men attractive," she said.
Pride was the most sexually attractive to women of all ages. Younger women also found shame particularly attractive, at least as attractive as pride.
"For older women that wasn't the case," Tracy said. "Shamed men were almost as unattractive as happy men."
"Shame says I'm a bad guy, but I know I screwed up so you can trust me," a mix that younger women found intoxicating, she said. "Older women may already have learned it's not such a good idea to go for [the bad guy]."
In women, happiness is the most attractive expression to men. Happiness in a woman is likely to be an indicator of good health, good genes and sexual receptiveness, "which is really important for men," Tracy explained.
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