10 Flirting Tips Backed By Science

10 Flirting Tips Backed By Science

Here’s the Top 10 Flirting Tips Backed by Scientific Inquiry.

1) Be Affectionate

Being decisive and direct with your touch while interacting with others may lead to their increased compliance in your flirtatious requests. Touch plays a role in how we create and shape our meaning and understanding of our relationships with others. Remember that affection is highly correlated with overall partner and relationship satisfaction – your first move could hold lasting impressions (Gulledge et al., 2003).

2) Create Confidence

Dr. Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic explains that self-confidence and flirting are entangled and when manipulated properly, we can use flirting as a means to improvise for our lack of confidence with new people. Flirting stimulates a common likeness between two people which in turn creates increased self-confidence and confidence in each other as a new social bond is formed.

3) Establish the Right Tone

When we are trying to catch someone’s attention, the evidence suggests that both men and women will lower their overall pitch when speaking to one another. This control over vocal tone and pitch is utilized to attract potential partners, to engage them in the moment, to captivate their attention. A study conducted in 2013 found that even minimal vocal cues are distinguishable by others, we tend to use vocal tone and pitch as a means of discerning romantic interest from average relationships. When it comes to flirting, knowledge of our vocal intentions can give us quite the advantage.

4) Mimic Body Language

Known as ‘The Chameleon Effect’, we constantly and subconsciously imitate the body language of those we interact with. Although we are not aware of this process, it is an act of mirroring that helps us learn and connect with our potential partner. Findings suggest that when we nonconsciously mirror those we interact with they are more likely to have an easy experience and create rapport with their romantic interest.

5) Be the Cool Guy

For once, being the stereotypical “cool guy” when meeting someone new might just give you the upper hand. Recent studies have looked into the role of facial expression as it moderates sexual attractiveness and gender-specific preferences. In 2008, a study through the University of Bristol found that women are not as attracted to a man’s smiling face, they react neutrally or even worse to it – women reported acute attraction to the actual movements of their partner’s facial expressions. If you’re a gal, do the opposite. Men are more attracted to women who smile.

6) Emotional Availability

When we ‘play hard to get’ emotionally with others, we create a dichotomous situation where we motivate our potential partners to compare whether they like us or want us, both or not at all. A study from 2014 found that when someone was already briefly attached to the person, the effects of ‘playing hard to get’ elicited strong motivational responses. However, when there was no attachment present it had the opposite effect when compared to being emotionally available. Keep in mind, being emotionally aloof can get the desired attention from those you’re interested in given the correct relationship context.

7) Maintain Your Sense of Humour

Humour functions as a social resource that we use to create and sustain relationships. Research across studies suggests that when we decide that someone is physically attractive we tend to perceive their humour as more relatable and funnier in general. Also, findings indicate that someone who initiates humour in the conversation is typically seen as conveying romantic interest. So keep on cracking jokes, someone is bound to find it funny.

8) Wear Red

The color red holds universal symbolic meaning across countries and cultures, associated with love, compassion, sex and lust. Niesta, Elliot & Feltman in their 2010 study found that the color red had proven to elicit provocative behavior from males when worn by females. Science does suggest this phenomenon is deeply rooted in evolutionary processes of reproduction, however the captive power of the color red still holds sway today

9) Eye Contact

Our eyes are the gate to nearly almost all the information we receive, our brains rely heavily on the encoding of this information and relationships are no exception. Although the value of eye contact between two people varies, universally eye contact has been a nonverbal cue of communication across countries and cultures. We utilize eye contact to establish trust and connection with others, to decipher deception, to roam our memories or share an experience. Eyes exist in a world of their own language, it’s up to us to define the language we use to speak with towards others.

10) Make a Move and Make it Deliberate

Flirting is driven by different motivational values, making it easy to misinterpret the signs and signals you think you might be getting. Studies agree that gender differences in perception of flirtatious advances between partners accounts for most of this miscommunication factor, or the potential for miscommunication. Men tend to assume that interactions initiated by women are wholly sexual, while women derive deeper meaning from simple gestures – signals cross when we’re not paying attention. So if you’re going to make the jump just remember, life has no rewrites, make it memorable.

  

Bonus: 11) Always Be Yourself

We like to think we can distinguish a lie from the truth, but studies indicate that we are usually only right about half the time if our partner is the one deceiving us. We tend to be a bit overconfident in our ability to distinguish the truth, but also in our ability to successfully deceive someone. In essence, if we are jaded and untrue in our interactions towards potential new partners it will only lead to crossed wires and misfiring signals.

Sources:

Boon S. D., McLeod B. A. (2001). Deception in romantic relationships: Subjective assessments of success at deceiving and attitudes toward deception. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 18, 463–476. doi:10.1177/0265407501184002.

Chamorro-Premuzic, Thomas. (2013). Confidence: How Much You Really Need and How to Get It. New York: Hudson Street Press.

Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception–behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(6), 893-910. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.6.893.

Dai, X., Dong, P., & Jia, J. S. (2014). When does playing hard to get increase romantic attraction? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 521-526.

Farley, D. Sally. Hughes, M. Susan. LaFayette, N. Jack. (2013). People Will Know We Are in Love: Evidence of Differences Between Vocal Samples directed Towards Lovers and Friends. Journal of NonVerbal Behavior, 37, 123-138. DOI:10.1007/s10919-013-0151-3.

Gulledge, A. K., Gulledge, M. H. & Stahmannn, R. F. (2003) Romantic physical affection types and relationship satisfaction, The American Journal of Family Therapy, 31, 233-242.

Henningsen, D. David. (2004). Flirting with Meaning: An Examination of Miscommunication in Flirting Interactions. Sex Roles, 50, 7-8: 481 – 489. DOI: 10.1023/B:SERS.0000023068.49352.4b.

Li N. P., Griskevicius V., Durante K. M., Jonason P. K., Pasisz D. J., Aumer K. (2009). An evolutionary perspective on humor: Sexual selection or interest indication? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 923–936.

Niesta Kayser, D., Elliot, A. J., & Feltman, R. (2010). Red and romantic behavior in men viewing women. European Journal Of Social Psychology, 40(6), 901-908.