No scientific researcher has spent time analyzing online dating pictures to come up with a unifying theory of what works, but some dating sites have. One of them, OKCupid, mined its data to categorize and analyze over seven thousand photos to find out if three indicators—facial attitude, how much skin is showing, and environment—bore any relationship to a person’s popularity on the site. What they found jives quite well with much of the science of attraction. From an evolutionary standpoint, men and women are both looking for a mate with a good genetic makeup, and we use physical cues to assess this; all of this means that your online profile photo can be one of the most blatant indicators of your genetic desirability.
To Smile or Not to Smile—It’s All About Hormone Levels
It’s seems obvious that smiling is a surefire way to increase your odds of appealing to the masses, but it turns out it depends on your gender. Why? Because according to the basic tenets of evolutionary theory, women are looking for men who come across as masculine, signaling they have high levels of testosterone, and men are looking for women who can portray estrogen-related attributes. Facial expression is one indicator that can offer hints to genetic makeup. According to the OKCupid analysis, a woman is much more likely to smile, giving off the message that she’s approachable and good at building relationships—traits that can signal she’s a good mate. On the other hand, men are much more likely to appear unsmiling in their pictures. Compared to the 56 percent of women who smile in their profile picture, only about 37 percent of men do. This is likely because men are attempting to achieve a more masculine appearance, which can signal that they have higher testosterone levels. Since women may consider men’s facial attractiveness as a cue for physical strength, a more masculine face is generally considered to be more attractive to them, and a stoic expression may convey more masculinity.
Women are also much more likely than men (9 percent versus 2 percent) to make a “flirty-face”—the pouty-lipped, coy picture that makes for a great come-on. However, there’s one caveat: the site found that flirting away from the camera is the worst thing a woman can do, perhaps because it sets a guy up for the inevitable feeling that “she’s just not that into me.” Flirting into the camera is the ideal picture for women because it overtly shows their interest in potential suitors—crucial in both the animal kingdom and modern world.
