7 / 12 Happy Faces Are More Attractive
A recent study published in the journal Emotion proved what many of us have known for years: A smiling face is more appealing (at least when it comes to women).
Participants were shown photos of adults sporting a number of various expressions (including big, beaming grins), and they consistently rated smiling women as the most attractive. “Our thinking is that smiling probably makes women look more feminine, which increases female attractiveness,” says head researcher Jessica Tracy, PhD, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia. “Another possibility is that smiling makes women appear receptive (sexually), which, of course, is appealing to men.”
However, this study surprisingly found that smiley men do not have the same appeal to women — instead, females were drawn to the serious, brooding type.
