Research by Marvin Hecht and Marianne La France from Boston University has revealed how subordinate people smile more in the presence of dominant and superior people, in both friendly and unfriendly situations, whereas superior people will smile only around subordinate people in friendly situations. Now carry on reading for smiling advice for women.

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This research shows that women smile far more than men in both social and business situations, which can make a woman appear to be subordinate or weak in an encounter with unsmiling men. Some people claim that women's extra smiling is the result of women historically being placed by men into subordinate roles, but other research shows that by the age of eight weeks, baby girls smile far more than baby boys, so it's probably inborn as opposed to learned. The likely explanation is that smiling fits neatly into women's evolutionary role as pacifiers and nurturers. It doesn't mean a woman can't be as authoritative as a man; but the extra smiling can make her look less authoritative.

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.

'On The Run' Summary

This is a broken down version of the above article. The 'On The Run' Summary is here to provide you with basic headers and points about the article so you can get the 'idea'.

• Women smile far more than men in both social and business situations, which can make a woman appear to be subordinate or weak in an encounter with unsmiling men.
• Research shows that by the age of eight weeks, baby girls smile far more than baby boys, so it's probably inborn as opposed to learned.
  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.

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