Tag Archive for Attractiveness

Eliminating Beta Male Body Language

Pockets are a great place to stash a few hands.  Only problem is that it makes us look uncomfortable.

Pockets are a great place to stash a few hands. Only problem is that it makes us look uncomfortable.

While women might become nervous as a signal of a man’s attractiveness in her eye, and use it effectively to attract his attention, she won’t find this signals attractive when done by men. To her, nervousness signals that he is a lesser man; a beta man.

Beta male characteristics includes but is not limited to fidgeting, slouching, putting hands in pockets, crossing arms, wringing the hands, talking with a hand hiding the mouth, and touching or scratching the face or neck without purpose. Men who exhibit these gestures might signal nonverbally their attraction to a woman, but the signals won’t be found to be a turn-on to women. In other words, men should drop this cue altogether because it doesn’t help their cause. Rather, they should use the dominant body language listed below to create arousal in women and thereby elicit sexual body language from them. Beta men by definition are those that come second to dominant or alpha men, both in daily life and in dating.

In the dating world, because beta men come second to alpha men are left choosing what alpha men deem less valuable. In other words, beta males get second pick (or are chosen by women second, however you want to look at things) and also miss out on dates more often than alpha males. Being beta in life, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact, most people are second in lead, or worse, to someone at any one time or another throughout the day. However, in dating, it is important to be alpha to at least one woman in life! We can also add that not every woman is alpha worthy either, and this is part of the natural order or hierarchy of things. Everything balances out in the end, even if we just act out our normal selves, as there are more than enough variations of people to pair up with. The issue stems from trying to reach higher into the hierarchy and this requires behavioural modifications and work. Chances are good though, that if you are reading this book, you have a desire to improve your success in life which is why we move forward.

In closing this point, what is important in terms of beta male body language, is to refrain from showing that the weight of the world is upon us forcing our shoulders to slouch, or that life has run amuck with our self esteem, by carrying awkward postures. Having our shoulders up and back shows that we can effectively carry the weight of our predicaments, no matter what that is.

Some beta male postures:

Touching the face indicates insecurity.

Touching the face indicates insecurity.

Hand to mouth gestures should be avoided as it is a sign of low confidence and sometimes lying.

Hand to mouth gestures should be avoided as it is a sign of low confidence and sometimes lying.

Extreme anxiety causes the desire to control the pain by inflicting it against ourselves.  It gives back our sense of control over our anxiety.  People who resort to 'cutting' also seek to displace their anxiety and control it.

Extreme anxiety causes the desire to control the pain by inflicting it against ourselves. It gives back our sense of control over our anxiety. People who resort to ‘cutting’ also seek to displace their anxiety and control it.

It’s A Women’s Job To Attract Attention

Men prefer a direct approach - study the signals, put them out there and men will respond.  Simple.

Men prefer a direct approach – study the signals, put them out there and men will respond. Simple.

Researcher in 1989 by Dr. Monica Moore of the University of Missouri in St Louis conducted a study of how women interacted in public. They specifically examined nonverbal language as it pertained to attracting attention from men. In the study, they followed eighteen to thirty-five year old women in singles bars. In all, she monitored her subjects for fifty-two different kinds of gestures and behaviours so she could relate them back to their effects on others. Some of the cues included, smiling, touching, pouting, skirt hiking, leaning toward males, brushing up against a man with her breasts or body, tossing her hair, gazing such as lowering eyelids, raising and widening eyes, throwing quick glances, flipping or tossing the hair or giggling.

Two interesting results stemmed from the research. One, the flirting was location specific. Most of the flirting happened in singles bars and was virtually non-existent in other locations. The second major finding was that women who signaled most often, where also most often approached by men. However, men that sent out signals in this way, fail miserably at receiving attention from women. In another study, researchers found that up to seventy percent of all courtship is initiated by women and ninety percent of the time, trained observers were able to accurately predict the outcome of interactions that stemmed from overt female behaviour. In this study, observes looked for cues such as upward palm gestures, primping, caressing one’s body with the hand, requesting aid, crossing and uncrossing legs, and exhibiting solitary dance movements. If you think attractiveness of subjects had anything to do with approach, think again. In fact, it’s the frequencies with which these behaviours occurred which had the greatest affect on drawing men in to approach. Attraction is in the eye of the behaviour. More attractive females showing few signals, attract less attention. If it’s your goal to reduce attention, eliminate positive body language. It’s not much more complicated than this.

'Accidental touching' is a subtle and low risk way women can initiate courtship.

‘Accidental touching’ is a subtle and low risk way women can initiate courtship.

Attractiveness plays little or no beneficial part in solicitation, as mentioned above. It has been said that men approach women who are near average or slightly above average most frequently and mathematically this should be obvious. Most men are average looking and it is them who are seeking out average women. Men might gawk at particularly hot women, but they rarely build up the courage to cross their “league” for fear of being rejected (or wasting their time). While average men could approach and possibly succeed in lower leagues, they’d be faced with having to lower their standards. As sad as it is, men and women seek to best maximize the attractiveness of their partners, and in most cases it involves dating someone of similar attractiveness.

Researcher Adam Kendon filmed a kissing couple in 1975 and found that it was the woman’s behaviour, particularly her facial expressions, that regulated and modulated the behaviour of her partner. Other research shows that women also modulate stages of intimacy through their nonverbal body language by allowing or disallowing the breach of stages. Women also tend to control the initiation of conversations between strangers too. For example, when no eye contact is made by the women, others don’t approach or start conversations. So in summary, there really is no excuse, it’s the women’s job to solicit, or reject, as the case may be making it vitally important for both women and men to recognize the signals of sexual solicitation. Next, we do just this!

Introduction – Chapter 13

He could learn a thing or two from this chapter.

He could learn a thing or two from this chapter.

In dating, men are the initiators, or aggressors, right? Wrong! In fact, the vast majority of the time women are the ones to give off signals first which cue men to approach rather than the other way around, and men usually don’t approach unless they perceive some form of attraction. I suppose the problem as women see it, is that the signals they give off are often under subconscious control so they never realize they are actually compelling men to approach them. This is what makes this chapter so important for both men and women who are newly entering, still playing, or even those who are re-entering the dating game. It will help men identify sexual cues from the cues we’ve seen so far which are non-sexual, and will help women focus on delivering the message they truly wish to communicate, or don’t wish to communicate, so as to avoid any confusion or unwanted solicitation.

She could learn a thing or two from this chapter.

She could learn a thing or two from this chapter.

Dating and courtship is ultimately about testing the willingness of a particular man to invest in a particular woman, with the net result producing children and hence a family. Sometime we fool ourselves into thinking there is much more than this involved, or that family creation has nothing to do with dating and courtship, but in reality there isn’t so. Some feel that dating is just for fun and nothing serious is at hand, and while some encounters are aimed in that direction, inevitably with brains that are evolutionarily hardwired to assess and realize the real risk of pregnancy stemming from sexual encounters, everyone considers and catalogs this risks with each and every partner. Thus, at play are cues to our fitness, health, vigor, sexiness and attractiveness which we evaluate as spoils which may be passed onto our children through our sexual partners. Birth control has played an effect on us, and we do treat sex more casually, but we still don’t choose partners willy-nilly. Women, try to draw courtship out by putting off sex, so as to solidify her bond with potential mates. Courtship, especially long ones, give women cues to a man’s ability and desire to invest in her with our form of resource; money. In our evolutionary history, men would have been good catches if they could build and maintain shelters, protect women from dangers such as other men and predators, had various skills like fire building, and of course the ability to regularly predating other animals for meat. The more time he invests initially, she thinks, the greater investment she will receive from him in the future.

Body language is a fundamental part of courtship. As we have learned, verbal language is risky and not only because it may lead to embarrassment, but because it often requires a verbal response from others, which can turn out to be tragically embarrassing. Keeping spoken words out of courtship initiation process and therefore out of consciousness will save us plenty of grief from being openly rejected, or perhaps even worse, negative feelings with having to reject. Using and reading nonverbal cues therefore is important in courtship, so pay particular attention to the following signals so you can judge interest yourself, without saying a word. Courtship signals are extensive and complex, perhaps numbering in the thousands, so I will only cover the basics here. For those that want more detail, they may wish to read my e-book Body Language Project: Dating, Attraction and Sexual Body Language (2007). Much more emphasis is placed on instruction for men to help them read women better, although it can be helpful to women who wish to send more appropriate signals of attraction, rejection or to simply bring from the subconscious the signals they use all the time.

Tonality And Voice Depth

The differences between the sexes is huge when it comes to our voices. Women’s voices are nearly twice as high pitched as men’s so with only rare exceptions, we all know which sex is speaking even without seeing them. The term “pitch” is defined as the voices “highness” or “lowness” of the voice which is affected by the natural body chemical androgen. Androgen is the male sex hormone which is also tied to physical prowess and aggressiveness and also loosely tied to a competitor’s health and vigor.

In 2005 Anthropologist David Puts used voice recordings of men to study the relationship between the tone of the voice and men’s attractiveness. He was able to increase and decrease the pitch of the voices using computer software to make the recording more or less dominant. Puts found that low-pitched masculine voices increased ratings of men’s physical and social dominance. He also found that men who felt they were more dominant than their competitors tended to lower their voices when speaking with them. Additionally, men who had deeper voices also reported having had more sexual partners over the year previous to the study. Naturally, women have also been shown to prefer men with lower pitched voices for short-term sexual relationships. Voice pitch can also help men rise in social dominance. For men, this means plenty. It means that lowering the voice can lead to a better attractiveness rating in the eye of women and can also be used as a tool to build dominance and leadership.

The pitch of the human voice also varies with emotional state. Even actors are able to portray different feelings based on their voice. You can imagine a father with his baby where he draws out his voice and makes it more like mom so he can grab his infants attention. Women can also lower their voices to be more like dad to scorn their children or conversely screech at them when they are really upset. The tendency to raise the pitch of the voice at the end of each sentence to make all statements seem like questions, is a bad habit adopted frequently by young women. If carried into adulthood, it can be disastrous in a business context. People read this inflection as a signal of insecurity and believe that you are unsure about what you are saying. In a business context, it is always best to be direct and act with conviction.

Summary – Chapter 5

It was all about the eyes in this chapter. We covered the friendly gaze where the eyes travel in a triangular pattern from eye to eye then to the mouth, the intimate gaze where the vast majority of time is spend looking at the eyes and mouth and the business gaze where eighty to ninety percent of the time is spent with direct eye contact and where the eyes never go below the neckline.

Next we covered how certain eye contact can be threatening, how to put your best side forward and how to avoid an attack by switching off the attack response. When looked at pupillometrics, or the study of pupil size in relation to emotion and we saw that larger pupils both signal attractiveness and interest. Having covered the basics it was time to put eye language into practice with the room encompassing glance, a clear signal of female interest, how blink rate can signal stress, an extended blink can be offputting and how the double wink can be sexy. Eye blocking was emphasized as a negative cue done to avoid harmful images or thoughts, and hit on eye flashes, eye widening and flashbulb eyes all carrying their own unique nonverbal message.

We found that by tilting the head at forty five degrees and looking upwards women can display the come-hither look invoking feelings of protectiveness in men. We also found that eye size was related to attractiveness and this was measured through research. Next we looked at shifty eyes and how they can predict stress, but not necessarily lying per se, looking askance to send “the look”, stealing looks and what it means, and how to properly address an audience through eye contact. NLP, we saw, refers to neuro-linguistic programming which is a system developed to induce behavioural changes and improve communication and derives its value by reaching for defined positive outcomes through identifying the roots by which thoughts affect images and sound or feelings. We then learned that NLP can help us predict things. For example, we saw that for most right-handed people, eye movement up and to the left is a signal of accessing a visual memory, movement up and right means that a person is trying to construct a visual image. Eyes either right or left, but still level, indicate an auditory process such as remembering sounds and words. Down and left indicate internal dialogue or self talk and down and right indicate a tactile or visceral feeling. When the eyes are straight ahead, unfocused or dilated they signal visual or any sensory information.

We also learned that there are three main ways in which people learn new information; auditory (spoken words) twenty five percent, kinesthetic (touch) forty percent and visual (images) thirty five percent. We also saw that eye direction has meaning where eyes focused straight ahead means passive receiving of information and eyes down means emotionally concentrating. From there we hit on appropriate eye contact during an interview and while communicating, the eyebrow and eye flash and what they mean and how they can be used.

Dilated Pupils

Big pupils means big interest.  Our eyes open up to the world to take in all the good things it sees.

Big pupils means big interest. Our eyes open up to the world to take in all the good things it sees.

In a classic study by Eckhard Hess in 1965, it was shown that pupil size was related to attractiveness in females. The men in the study were shown drawings of women’s faces, ones with normal sized pupils and ones with larger sized pupils. The men found that the larger pupil size was more attractive. This finding lead researchers to coin the term “pupillometry” referring to the measurement of the size of the pupil and its effect on others. Pupillometrics, on the other hand, refers to the evaluation of the pupil’s size in relation to interest and emotion.

The pupil is measured with the help of infrared cameras or sensors since visible light would throw off readings. The pupils are affected by light and open and close to allow more or less light in which assists in proper vision. In low light conditions the pupils will dilate or open to allow more light in and in bright conditions, the pupils will constrict to restrict the amount of light let it. Cameras are equipped with apertures which serve the same function. The bigger the hole, the more light comes through and the eye needs just the right amount of light to see properly.

Various studies show that our pupils also respond to positive stimuli by dilating or constricting when a person sees unpleasant or uninteresting stimuli. For example, pupils dilate more when heterosexual viewers see nude images of the opposite sex and constrict when viewing same sex images. Viewing unpleasant images such as crippled children, war scenes, or torture, leads to the constriction of the pupils. Hess and his colleagues found that an increase in pupil size was positively correlated with mental activity and problem solving and that people reached maximum dilation as they neared a solution. Further to this, images that were modified to contain female models with larger pupils tended to be rated more attractive and friendlier then images where the pupils were modified to be smaller or unmodified.

Pupil sizes can therefore be used to read people because it gives us a reliable tool for measuring interest and arousal even if in a subtle way. Subconsciously we are all aware of other’s pupil sizes as indicated by the study. Men were not able to consciously describe why they felt certain images were more attractive than others, but they did so anyway. Increased pupil size can be an indication of any positive stimuli such as food when hungry, or when seeking companionship, other potential suitors in a room. Paying at least some conscious attention to the pupil sizes of others can give us information about the overall state the people around us are in. One of the reasons pupil size is so powerful is because we are not able to consciously control the size of our pupils which means that pupils will always naturally react to stimuli we find attractive. Wearing sunglasses by professional poker players is partially explained with these findings since dilated pupils might provide a ‘tell’ to their opponents.

If you think pupils aren’t hardwired, then take the pupil test. Have someone look at the drawing in “image B” while covering “image A” then after some time have them look at “image A” while covering “image B”. You will notice that the eyes dilate in response as the brain naturally thinks it is looking at a set of eyes. Italian women in the 18th century would place eye drops called belladonna containing atropine to chemically induce their eyes to dilate in order to elicit attention from men. Today, marketing does the work for us, as images are commonly doctored by image modifying software to appeal to our innate biology. Turning the lights down or a candle lit dinner can have the same effect. Even artificially modifying pupil size by dimming the lights subconsciously produces arousal. Through their eyes they tell us that they are interested in us and so we become interested in them!