How Smiling Changes the Attractiveness of Male Faces

Why do women find guys appealing? Is it his personality, his physical attributes, or his shows of emotion? According to one recent study by experts at the Universities of Cambridge and Stirling, the answer can be so situational and sometimes face-type determined, too.

This study examined how changes in relationship context, emotional expression, and facial masculinity influence women’s preferences for men’s faces. It was published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. The extent of the features generally associated with men, such as the brow ridge, the size of the nose, and a strong jawline, refer to facial masculinity. Past research has shown that, while masculine features signal good genes, they also signal a disposition for increased violence and dominance; thus, women prefer more masculine faces for short-term relationships but less masculine faces for long-term ones.

The experiment in this study attempted to establish how the interaction of face masculinity and emotional expression affects women’s perception of attractiveness. The relational context, such as casual sex versus committed relationship, would also buffer these effects. In an attempt to do this, they asked 583 heterosexual women to evaluate the physical attractiveness of computer-generated pictures of male faces which varied in masculinity and expression within different contexts.

The results showed that relationship context and facial masculinity were moderators of women’s preferences for men’s faces in the expression of emotions. It was revealed during the replication of previous findings that women liked neutral faces more masculine in content when they considered the men as a short-term partner and less masculine when the same men were viewed as a long-term partner. Whatever the relationship context, women liked less masculine faces more when smiling; thus, smiling reduces the appeal of masculine faces. However, both in short-term and in long-term relationships, women liked more masculine faces when the latter were angry; thus, anger raises the appeal of otherwise masculine faces.

These findings, researchers suggested, may reflect the different messages conveyed by a man’s emotional displays about his character and about his goals. That is, a smile can indicate approachability, trustworthiness, and warmth but also low status and lack of power, whereas the latter is less wanted for a short-term partner. Anger is an emotion signaling aggressiveness and hostility and hence is less wanted for a long-term relationship. On the other hand, it also signals strength, assertiveness, and competitiveness-qualities appealing to both short-term and long-term partners.

Another finding of this study is that the female participant preferences for the male face expressions depended on the participants’ personality traits: women who had greater scores on agreeableness-operationalized as friendly, cooperative, and empathetic-preferred the more happy and less masculine faces compared to lower scorers. By relative comparisons, women who scored higher in extraversion in terms of being outgoing, exciting, and positive liked angry faces compared to women scoring low in extraversion.

Taken together, say the researchers, the results put new light on the way men’s facial expressions influence their attractiveness and the way the influences depend on the women’s personalities, the relationship type, and facial masculinity. They proposed that further studies examine other factors that can influence variation in women’s preferences for male faces showing emotion, including cultural variation, men’s personality traits, and hormonal states.