No more Mr. Nice guy and bright smiles, For men who desire attraction from the opposite sex, according to a new study from the University of British Columbia. It showed that women find smug, gloomy "bad boys" more attractive than "nice guys."
This new study which was published in the journal Emotion revealed some of the different responses men and women give to certain emotions like happiness, pride and shame based on their sexual attraction or what they consider attractive.
It was once thought that smiling and being pleasant was essential when trying to make a good impression, but the study found that "men and women respond very differently to displays of emotion, including smiles," the author of the study Jessica Tracy, a professor of psychology at the university, said in a written statement.
To conduct the study, more than 1,000 adult participants were asked to rate the sexual attractiveness of hundreds of images of the opposite sex. The images showed people in displays of happiness and cheerfulness (bright smiles), pride (raised head, puffed-up chest), also sadness and shame (lowered head, averted eyes).
Who did the women go for? The study showed they favored guys who looked conceited or glum and depressed. But the guys were most sexually attracted to women who looked happy, and less attracted to those who appeared superior and confident.
Tracy and her co-author, graduate student Alec Beall, said women may have evolved to find proud guys attractive because pride implies status, competence and an ability to provide for a partner and offspring. furthermore previous research has associated smiling with a lack of dominance - which men seem to find attractive in a mate, but not the other way around.
Beall also pointed out in the statement that the people in the study weren't asked to evaluate men on the basis of whether they might make a good mate. "We wanted their gut reactions on carnal, sexual attraction," he said.