Image: Flickr/MattysFlicks
Remember when your mom would yell at you to "sit up straight!"? While annoying, she was trying to look out for you. And according to this article, her advice might lead to more than just a healthy back. Here, scientists studied whether our body language affects how attractive we are. It turns out that the more "space" we take up--for example by sitting straight versus hunching over, or extending arms rather than keeping them folded--the more attractive we seem. Thanks mom!
Dominant, open nonverbal displays are attractive at zero-acquaintance. "Across two field studies of romantic attraction, we demonstrate that postural expansiveness makes humans more romantically appealing. In a field study (n = 144 speed-dates), we coded nonverbal behaviors associated with liking, love, and dominance. Postural expansiveness—expanding the body in physical space—was most predictive of attraction, with each one-unit increase in coded behavior from the video recordings nearly doubling ...
