Everyone says to smile, but how?
Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:15 pm[url]http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/05/slow-smile-attracts.php[/url]
[b]
A Slow Smile Attracts[/b]
Psychology research is not generally very good at capturing change. Measurements tend to be fairly static, either looking at one slice of time or asking participants to average over a period. Which is why this research on smiling is so unusual. Some of the best known research on smiling is about how people judge an authentic smile - the so-called 'Duchenne smile' or the 'crinkly-eyed smile'. What this research asks, though, is how does a smile's speed in combination with head-tilt and gender affect its perception.
In this experiment, one hundred participants, half men half women, were sat in front of a monitor to judge the smiles of synthetic faces (Krumhuber, Manstead & Kappas, 2007). They watched the faces smiling - some whose smile appeared in just over 0.1 of a second, and some whose smile appeared in just over 0.5 of a second. At the same time, some of the heads were tilted to the left and some to the right. Participants then had to judge the smiles on how trustworthy, attractive, dominant, fake and flirtatious they made the faces seem.
Results
The study replicated a previous finding that a long-onset smile (0.5s onset) is seen as more authentic and flirtatious. On top of this, the researchers found long-onset smiles were perceived as more attractive, more trustworthy and less dominant. Head tilting also increased attractiveness and trustworthiness but only if the head was tilted in the right direction. In this case, the right direction was the same way as eye orientation or towards a partner.[br][link={e_FILE}public/1226513691_489_FT0_genuinesmile.jpg][img:width=640&height=426]{e_FILE}public/1226513691_489_FT0_genuinesmile_.jpg[/img][/link][br]
[b]
A Slow Smile Attracts[/b]
Psychology research is not generally very good at capturing change. Measurements tend to be fairly static, either looking at one slice of time or asking participants to average over a period. Which is why this research on smiling is so unusual. Some of the best known research on smiling is about how people judge an authentic smile - the so-called 'Duchenne smile' or the 'crinkly-eyed smile'. What this research asks, though, is how does a smile's speed in combination with head-tilt and gender affect its perception.
In this experiment, one hundred participants, half men half women, were sat in front of a monitor to judge the smiles of synthetic faces (Krumhuber, Manstead & Kappas, 2007). They watched the faces smiling - some whose smile appeared in just over 0.1 of a second, and some whose smile appeared in just over 0.5 of a second. At the same time, some of the heads were tilted to the left and some to the right. Participants then had to judge the smiles on how trustworthy, attractive, dominant, fake and flirtatious they made the faces seem.
Results
The study replicated a previous finding that a long-onset smile (0.5s onset) is seen as more authentic and flirtatious. On top of this, the researchers found long-onset smiles were perceived as more attractive, more trustworthy and less dominant. Head tilting also increased attractiveness and trustworthiness but only if the head was tilted in the right direction. In this case, the right direction was the same way as eye orientation or towards a partner.[br][link={e_FILE}public/1226513691_489_FT0_genuinesmile.jpg][img:width=640&height=426]{e_FILE}public/1226513691_489_FT0_genuinesmile_.jpg[/img][/link][br]