What women find attractive men

What Women Want

Women showed some preference for thin, muscular men. But they also disagreed over the hotness factor of many men, with some women giving a guy high attractiveness ratings while others scored the same guy as not attractive at all. To read the full article go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31669474/ns/health

The results of the study were published in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a journal that I have been reading since my undergrad days in the 70's as I began researching and writing about body language. The research has some important implications for the dating scene.

Women are programmed to find all sorts of men attractive so they are not all competing for the same Tarzan he man. The textbook I used when I taught body language at Florida State cited research that found that women find men who look like their current boyfriend or mate the most attractive and that as women change love interests they change what they find attractive in a man. Thank goodness we are flexible.

Men who seem to find the same wafer thin model type women attractive might face stiff competition from other guys who all have eyes for the same handful of women. The research suggested men may need to invest more time and energy into attracting and guarding their mates from other potential suitors. I guess that means men who find thin women attractive need to increase their credit card debt. Oh, and they do: After eons of evolution, men are hardwired to overspend and max out credit cards to attract mates, a study last year concluded. To read more, check out the link below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31669474/ns/health-behavior/

Attractivenss

A new research study has found that men find women who are thin and seductive attractive. But the ladies are less in agreement over what makes for a hot guy, new research finds.

"The study included more than 1,300 heterosexual men, about 2,700 heterosexual women, Participants each rated nearly 100 photographs of either men or women, depending on the participant's gender and sexual orientation. They scored how attractive they found each photographed individual on a 10-point scale from "not at all" to "very" attractive. "

Despite another recent study that found modern men are more interested in intelligent, educated women than in decades past, in the new study men tended to base their attractiveness ratings on women's physical features, giving stellar marks to those who looked thin and seductive. Most of the men in the study also rated photographs of women who looked confident as more attractive. Yippee for all the confident women! At least all the women who can maintain their confidence in the face of research that says you need to be thin and seductive.

Hair and Attractiveness

I just read an article titled 10 Hairstyles That Make You Look 10 Years Younger. Even celebrities have bad hair days. Here, the red carpet looks that will add a decade to any face—famous or not. (Read the article by Lindsy Van Geldera) As a body Language expert who has spoken on attractiveness and dating for many years I realize that hair styles can make you look quite different. Long healthy shiny hair is an indication of overall health and is nature's way of showing that you are young enough to be fertile and reproduce. This would make you sexually appealing. Loose long hair is at a primal level more appealing. Darn it. I have written and blogged about how signs of youth make you more attractive. I am not happy about it. But I am certain the research is accurate. The experts tell us that the physical features and characteristics considered to be "beautiful" are in fact subconscious indicators of fertility and good health.

Series: Famous statements about lies #7

"The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it."

-James Russell Lowell
(http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1611/sins22lies0index.html)

For a speaker and coach on body language and deception detection go to www.PattiWood.net and book Patti or buy her book Success Signals.

How can you tell if he or she is lying? Listening to the words.

In further media interviews the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, uses a technique I now call the 'redefining tactic' (after former president Clinton's famous, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman.") Governor Sanford says he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress. He says he "never crossed the ultimate line" with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur. During an emotional interview with the Associated Press at his statehouse office on Tuesday Sanford said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." Sanford said the casual encounters happened on trips he'd taken outside the US with male friends to "blow off steam". He alleges they occurred while he was married but before he met Chapur. So to be clear--it doesn't count as sex if you don't cross the sex line and you are just blowing off steam. UCkkk!
As a media coach, I know the importance of using the right words. In this case he is choosing phrases that make him sound like a college frat boy. This is such a horrible story for his family to have to hear about. Please just apologize clearly and briefly and move on.

Click Here to read the AP article about Governor Sanford's apology.
For information of public seminars Patti is giving on body language and deception detection in Philadeliphia though Paliani consulting please contact us or go directly to the Paliani site.

Youtube a way of sharing stories

We computer users are spending, "...fifty percent more time watching online video now than we did a year ago," according to the latest monthly metrics from the Nielsen Online Video Census. Fascinating. Moreover, I think so much of it is voyeuristic. We want to watch real people doing crazy, funny things. We used to share stories about what uncle Matt did at the last family gathering, now we email each other the YouTube video of a 4-year-old painting or Susan Boyle singing. We are sharing moving images in the same way we used to use verbal story telling. Very interesting. Someone else is doing the story telling but the need to share the story is the same.
www.bigfatmarketingblog.com

Patti offers programs for college students

Some of you don't know that I give programs to college students at colleges and universities around the country. Here are some of the topics I address:

How to Create a Positive First Impression
What cues do you need to focus on to look good to a recruiter or interviewer?

How to Handle Greetings and Introductions
What moves guarantee you look and feel confident?

How to Dress Right for Every Occasion
How should you dress so you look cool, not uncomfortable or dorky?

How to Be Comfortable in Any Conversation
What should you say and how should you say it so you can feel at ease and make others feel comfortable and ensure a good start for forming key relationships?

How to Prepare for the Job Fair or Follow up after an Job Fair or interview
How should you prepare? What should you expect? How should you follow up to maintain your contacts?

What words do liars use? Governor Sanford's apology

Just like body language cues leak out whether or not someone is lying, Freudian “slips” in language can reveal underlying anxiety, guilt, or arousal. Research from as far back as the Mehrabian (1971) has reported higher numbers of speech errors in deceivers than in non-deceivers. Linguistic style analysis reveals how the deceptive message is conveyed as compared to a truthful message (Pennebaker & King, 1999). Based on earlier work, some of the most reliable markers of linguistic styles are the use of content-free words, such as articles, pronouns, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, and emotionally toned words. See my last post for other specific examples.
So Gary Condit when talking about his wife and a stewardess he had an affair with used the pronouns she and her to refer to both woman rather than using their names or stating his personal relationship with them. Recently Governor Sanford used the term "those boys" instead of my sons or using the names or his sons during his apology, though he referred to his staff by name, by using such an impersonal label for his sons he idicated his desire to disconect from his responsiblity as a father. Govenor Sanford also never actually said, "I am sorry." Instead he asked for forgiveness which is something I have noticed politicians and celebrities often choose to do in their interviews with the press. As a body language expert and media coach I coach for my clients to use the words, "I am sorry." "I apologize." "I made a mistake." For the nonverbal read of Governor Sanford's apology, check last Friday's post. And for the slips of the tongue used by Michael Vick in his apology for hosting dog fights go to my website.

Slips of the Tongue or Freudian Slips Reveal Liars

You think that a liar has a great deal of control over the content of their story, but the style of language used to tell this story may contain clues to their underlying state of mind. The idea that our word choices can give away our underlying thoughts and feelings dates back to Freud (1901), who argued that speech mistakes, or parapraxes, “almost invariably [reveal] a disturbing influence of something outside of the intended speech” (p. 80). Freud recounts the case of a doctor visiting a wealthy patient who was suffering from a long illness. Despite outwardly claiming to have his patients’ interest in mind, the doctor remarked, “ . . . I hope you will not soon leave your bed” (p.88), revealing his underlying selfish desire to continue treating a wealthy patient. TFor

Information of public seminars Patti is giving on body language and deception detection in Philadeliphia in the summer of 09 though Paliani consulting please contact us or go directly to the Paliani site. You can always contact Patti at Patti@PattiWood.net
Those little slips of the tongue he called Freudian slips.

Word choice, like body language, can reveal a liar

Lying often involves telling a story that is false, a story that the liar doesn't believe. If you analyze the text of a liar or a truth teller and look at the linguistic style you can see words and phrases that distinguish between true and false stories. Computer based text analysis programs can correctly classify liars and truth-tellers at a rate of 67% accuracy. Here is how you can look for words and phrases that liars use. Compared to truth-tellers, liars use fewer self-references such as I or me and prefer to use words like we or us. Liars are more likely to use other-references such as she or her instead of personal reverences such as, "My daughter Sara or my wife Sue". Liars use inclusive generalization such as "awhile ago" instead of "five days ago". They also use more negative emotion words like bad or awful.

Body Language and Content to Read for Lies in Apologies

I am often asked to read the body language of apologizes and media interviews made by politicians like Governor Mark Sanford, Sport Stars like A-Rod, and Celebrities. Most of you know that I discuss the body language, but what you may not know is that I also read the actual words that are spoken. Last week I gave my public seminar on Deception Detection. (by the way I am doing my next public seminar on deception detection, so you can catch a liar on July 22, 2009 in Philadelphia. Call or email for details.) I teach how to analyze the words and the meaning behind them to detect whether or not a person is lying. In the next post I will give you textbook 'tells' for lying.

Photo analysis of Governor Sanford

I was just reading a twitter post about Governor Sanford's odd body language http://twitter.com/bagnewsnotes. The tweeter criticized his body language and in the next post apologized because he found out the photo he was analyzing was a year old. You really need to know your source before analyzing the body language in photos. I imagine the media was using that photo to represent the governor and most of the public assumed that it was a timely photo that represented his body language response to the discovery of his affair with an Argentinian woman.