By Melissa Dahl

A note to single dudes: If you're looking to pick up a woman at a bar, whatever you do -- don't smile at her.

Women are actually less sexually attracted to smiley, happy men, suggests a new University of British Columbia study, published online today in the journal Emotion. If that's surprising to you -- it was surprising to lead researcher Jessica Tracy, too. "I wouldn’t have believed it if we didn’t go out and replicate it three times," says Tracy, an assistant psychology professor at UBC.

Researchers asked more than 1,000 volunteers to rate the sexual attractiveness of hundreds of images of the opposite sex. (All were heterosexual, ages 17 to 49 years, with a median age of 21. Fifty-two percent of participants were Asian, and 48 percent were Caucasian.) In the images, the men and women pictured were demonstrating one of three emotions: happiness, pride or shame -- plus a "neutral" image thrown in there, too. They found that women ranked the smiling guys as less attractive -- but they were into the prideful and ashamed men. But the male participants were most attracted to the smiling women, and least attracted to the ones who seemed proud.

More research is needed to determine why this might be, but Tracy has a few hunches. Past research has shown that smiling increases perception of femininity, so that might be one reason smiles worked on women, but not on men. Also, "smiling indicates availability, or interest. For men, that's a really important thing to know about a woman, so it makes sense that men would find smiling really attractive," Tracy says. "For women, that's not as important. There's the general assumption that men are more generally receptive."

But the fact that women find shame more attractive may also help explain the attractiveness of the "bad boy" -- the one who seems like he can be turned around. "The bad boy who feels shame, women have always found that attractive -- that’s the James Dean look. He’s the bad boy, but he wants to change," Tracy says.

One thing to keep in mind: The study measured just sexual attractiveness, not whether women are interested in carrying on a relationship with a sullen, unsmiling dude. But Tracy adds, "If a (man's) sole aim is to be as sexually attractive as possible, smiling may not be his best bet."

i like a guy that smile ,how else im gonna know if he has perfectly white and even teeth

if he doesn't smile at me I will not talk to him or even consider him

so much for research

Man smiling.



Man not smiling.

Lol Red

alright ((((Red))))

Well, I was hoping some women would agree. Mainly, because I hate smiling in pictures, lol. I guess Red is right, I'll have to change my pic.

They didn't mention the emotional state of the women used for the study here either!

Happy women like happy men

IMO...A happy & confident man is the sexiest

Hahaha ya tell me which one you are more likely to talk to or consider


If they don't smile and have a sense of humor I assure you I will not even look their way............

Seems that research was done by a prude!

before gf after gf pictures ..no doubt..

he feels shame and she wants to turn him around.....

sounds like a recipe for disaster

I don't think it matters whether a guy smiles or not. Some people just don't like to smile when pictures are taken so that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with that person; its just their preference. Afterall its just a picture.

Well it looks like that research shows that it does matter, the numbers don't lie. One factor they are leaving out that may explain why some of you are disagreeing with this could be the age, the younger they are, the more likely they are to fall for the bad boy. After a certain age they ignore bad boys (usually).

They left out quite a number of emotion-facials. Like how comes he across, when he puckers his lips for a kiss? Or he puts his thumb on his nose and his fingers out to ward the sky. Or he growls. Or he is cursing coz he hit his thumb with a hammer. Or he has his tongue to his bellybutton, and drools -- there is a stake in front of him, a beer, a gilr, or an Xbox 4550. Or he is hungry-looking or he looks like he's about to write a poem or else a memo to the boss, on the predictable memo-pads for the next fiscal quarter.

Guys have emotions, too, you know.

Women like disasters.

The more the disaster, the more to work on together in harmony and build a better future. Much like US foreign policy.

The building of the better future turns out to be a disaster, too? Well...... no problem!! More to fix, more bright future to look forward to.

So in fact there is no way a woman can lose when she picks a shamed youngster who is trying to get into reform school, but can't get accepted. Or get into jail because he wants to be corrected, but the jails are all full up, no more room. He's been walking around in the jail stair well, and each storey has a sign, "this level is full".

Gee wonder which one I'd pick

*Cough* Article is bullchit *cough*.

I ignore unhappy people, sullenness just isn't appealing

I guess I had better stop......

What I find funny is that it the study was done by a woman and the article was written by a woman, but the women who have posted, and naturally being on this site look at pictures of men often, disagree with the article/study. I really think you are looking too far into it though. It's only talking about physical attractivness, not personality type or a general additude. It simply says if you look at a picture of a man you dont know, you will find the one of him smiling less atractive than one where he is not.