Study: Smiling Makes You Look Cooler

One of the longest-held unspoken rules for being cool is keeping one’s emotions under control. This idea is commonly reinforced through advertisements where fashion models often look inexpressive and rarely smile.

In a new study, researchers at the University of Arizona wanted to investigate whether this link between concealing emotions and coolness was in fact true. In a series of experiments, participants looked at print-ad models who were either smiling or being inexpressive. The findings reveal that being inexpressive doesn’t necessarily make you look cool to others, but smiling often does.

“We found over and over again that people are perceived to be cooler when they smile compared to when they are inexpressive in print advertisements,” says Caleb Warren, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Arizona. “Being inexpressive makes people seem unfriendly or cold rather than cool.”

Read the full article at PsychCentral. 

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