Study offers new take on flirting science
Even during a brief conversation, strangers reveal their attraction for one another in their own special way, according to researchers at the University of Kansas.
"Researchers have long known that many verbal and nonverbal behaviors are linked to underlying attraction, but this is the first study to show that different ways of communicating attraction reveal a person's flirting style," says Jeffrey Hall, associate professor of communication studies at the U of K.
In the experiment, Hall's research team brought together 51 man-woman pairs of heterosexual strangers who had described their individual flirting styles in a questionnaire.
After reviewing the responses, Hall broke down the data in the questionnaire and concluded that his subjects' flirting styles fit into the categories of physical, traditional, sincere, polite and playful.
Each pair of strangers was videotaped for approximately 10 minutes as they interacted together for the first time in what Hall describes as a friendly atmosphere with comfortable chairs and a coffee table.
"We had prompt cards to read with questions to help them learn about other person, such as 'what accomplishment are you most proud of?' These were meant to get the conversation going," says Hall.
Afterwards, participants told the researchers how much attraction they felt towards their partners in the experiment.
"One of the important things to keep in mind is that flirting is an outgrowth of your feeling toward another person -- something you can't easily hinder," says Hall. "When you're expressing yourself with someone you might like, nonverbal and verbal behaviors begin to reflect attraction, with a coy smile here and a laugh and a tease there, to clarify how you feel about a person."
Between the conversations and the revelations of their attraction or lack thereof, participants had provided enough material for Hall and his team to code 36 flirting behaviors, both verbal and non-verbal.
"We found that as people became more attracted to their conversation partner, they showed that attraction in ways that revealed their flirting style," says Hall.
Flirts with a sincere style -- who communicate attraction by focusing their attention on the other person -- were less fidgety and the women among them laughed and smiled more, showing their interest in earnest.
Men who were traditional flirts -- who believe they should do the brunt of the job -- often leaned into the conversation, whereas their female counterparts were demure, revealing their wrists and hands in a gesture of flirtation known as palming.
"A polite flirt tends to be very hands-off and respectful, but as you can imagine, this type of flirting isn't obvious to the people they're attracted to," says Hall. "They lean back, create even more space and are more even in verbal tone. For most people, it signals a lack of closeness, but polite flirts do it more the more attracted they become."
Physical flirts, however, didn't fare well during the one-on-one conversation.
Hall says this is because these types -- normally self-assured -- troll cafés, nightclubs and parties to get their flirt on and feel a bit stymied in the staged environment of an academic research project that's strictly conversational.
"We're really bad at detecting if people are flirting with us," Hall said. "We're great at knowing when they're not interested. But the reason we're bad at seeing when they are interested is people show it in such a variety of ways."
Hall's study was published in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, and his online Flirting Styles Inventory is open to the public: www.flirtingstyles.com
