The Magic of Smiles and LaughterWomen's extra smiling is probably
hardwired into the brain.Social psychologist Dr Nancy Henley, at UCLA, described a
woman's smile as 'her badge of appeasement' and it is often
used to placate a more powerful male. Her research showed
that, in social encounters, women smile 87% of the time
versus 67% for men and that women are 26% more likely to
return smiles from the opposite sex. An experiment using 15
photographs of women showing happy, sad and neutral faces
were rated for attractiveness by 257 respondents. The women
with the sad expressions were considered the least attractive.
Pictures of unsmiling women were decoded as a sign of
unhappiness while pictures of unsmiling men were seen as a
sign of dominance. The lessons here are for women to smile
less when dealing with dominant men in business or to mirror
the amount of smiling that men do. And if men want to be
more persuasive with women, they need to smile more in all
contexts.Laughter In LoveRobert Provine found that in courtship, it's also women who
do most of the laughing and smiling, not men. Laughing in
these contexts is used as a way of determining how success-
fully a couple is likely to bond in a relationship. Simply put,
the more he can make her laugh, the more attractive she will
find him. This is because the ability to make others laugh is
perceived as a dominant trait and women prefer dominant
males, while males prefer subordinate females. Provine also
round that a subordinate person will laugh to appease a supe-
rior person and the superior person will make subordinates
laugh - but without laughing himself — as a way of maintain-
ing his superiority.