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A little flirting goes a long way
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
This week–
A little flirting goes a long way ROWAN HOOPER
HOW do antisocial men manage to attract women? Or, to put it another way, why do some women always fall for bastards? It seems that a little bit of flirting – smiling, raising eyebrows, nodding – goes a long way towards attracting a woman, even outweighing the negative effects of some men’s antisocial nature. “Antisocial men can make up a lot of ground just by being flirtatious,” says psychologist Andrew Clark. When we meet people, we are not interacting with static images, yet such images are used in most studies of attractiveness. Realising this, Clark and colleagues at the University of Bristol, UK, became interested in facial movements – the quintessential ingredient of flirting – as a source of information for potential mates. To tests their importance, the team filmed the faces of 28 men as they talked. To remove all complicating factors, the researchers erased the soundtrack, created a wireframe animation of
How a drug company handles its critics WHEN the US Congress examined the controversy over the diabetes drug Avandia back in June, things got embarrassing for GlaxoSmithKline. A researcher who raised safety concerns in 1999, although he later withdrew them, was questioned about attempts by the company to silence him – a charge GSK denied. Now it has emerged that conversations about how to deal 10 | NewScientist | 29 September 2007
each face, and standardised the face shape across all subjects. Women were then shown the animations, which were randomly paired with a written prosocial or antisocial statement, such as “I really enjoy helping old people”, or “Old people bore me”. After viewing an assortment of videos, women were then asked rate the men’s attractiveness in the context of either a fling or a long-term relationship. In general the women
“A flirtatious man shows vigour and social confidence, both of which may reveal good genes”
–It’s not what you say…–
preferred men who made prosocial statements, but the importance they placed on this varied according to whether they were interested in a short or longterm relationship. For those women more interested in a fling than a long-term relationship, the men who appeared most flirtatious were rated as more attractive, even if they had been paired with
an antisocial statement. A flirtatious man shows vigour and social confidence, both of which may reveal good genes, says Clark, who presented the work at a meeting of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour at Newcastle University, UK, earlier this month. It may also show they are more interested in sex. This might be
why women pay more attention to flirtatiousness if they are thinking about a short-term relationship. “I don’t think women like bastards,” Clark says. “I think antisocial men who behave flirtatiously are either fooling women into thinking they’re not really so bad, or they’re actually demonstrating that they’re not so bad.” ●
with the critic took place at the highest levels. Internal emails presented to the Senate this month show that several executives, including CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier, knew of plans to put pressure on John Buse, a diabetes researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). One email, entitled “Avandia Renegade”, was sent in June 1999 by William Claypool, a senior vicepresident at what was then called SmithKline Beecham, to Tachi Yamada, then chairman of research and development. It accuses Buse of misrepresenting safety data. Claypool suggests warning Buse
not to repeat the claims, with the “punishment” being that “we would complain up his academic line” and to the bodies that gave Buse accreditation for teaching. Yamada’s reply, sent the same day, was copied to Garnier. In it, Yamada discusses the possibility of approaching the chairman of Buse’s department and of suing Buse for “knowingly defaming our product”. “Top officials at GlaxoSmithKline clearly knew what was going on,” says Merrill Goozner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington DC. Neither Yamada nor Claypool could be reached for comment. GSK
spokeswoman Mary Anne Rhyne says the company did not attempt to silence Buse. “GSK was trying to correct a mistake Dr Buse made in his presentation,” she says. “That was troubling to us and we wanted to make sure that our data was accurately presented. We considered internally a number of options, but ultimately we made our concerns known to Dr Buse and he corrected his statements.” Buse also declined to comment. He signed a statement in June stating that he had later changed his thinking on Avandia and that the incident had been “upsetting, but not life-altering”. Jim Giles ● www.newscientist.com
This week–
A little flirting goes a long way ROWAN HOOPER
HOW do antisocial men manage to attract women? Or, to put it another way, why do some women always fall for bastards? It seems that a little bit of flirting – smiling, raising eyebrows, nodding – goes a long way towards attracting a woman, even outweighing the negative effects of some men’s antisocial nature. “Antisocial men can make up a lot of ground just by being flirtatious,” says psychologist Andrew Clark. When we meet people, we are not interacting with static images, yet such images are used in most studies of attractiveness. Realising this, Clark and colleagues at the University of Bristol, UK, became interested in facial movements – the quintessential ingredient of flirting – as a source of information for potential mates. To tests their importance, the team filmed the faces of 28 men as they talked. To remove all complicating factors, the researchers erased the soundtrack, created a wireframe animation of
How a drug company handles its critics WHEN the US Congress examined the controversy over the diabetes drug Avandia back in June, things got embarrassing for GlaxoSmithKline. A researcher who raised safety concerns in 1999, although he later withdrew them, was questioned about attempts by the company to silence him – a charge GSK denied. Now it has emerged that conversations about how to deal 10 | NewScientist | 29 September 2007
each face, and standardised the face shape across all subjects. Women were then shown the animations, which were randomly paired with a written prosocial or antisocial statement, such as “I really enjoy helping old people”, or “Old people bore me”. After viewing an assortment of videos, women were then asked rate the men’s attractiveness in the context of either a fling or a long-term relationship. In general the women
“A flirtatious man shows vigour and social confidence, both of which may reveal good genes”
–It’s not what you say…–
preferred men who made prosocial statements, but the importance they placed on this varied according to whether they were interested in a short or longterm relationship. For those women more interested in a fling than a long-term relationship, the men who appeared most flirtatious were rated as more attractive, even if they had been paired with
an antisocial statement. A flirtatious man shows vigour and social confidence, both of which may reveal good genes, says Clark, who presented the work at a meeting of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour at Newcastle University, UK, earlier this month. It may also show they are more interested in sex. This might be
why women pay more attention to flirtatiousness if they are thinking about a short-term relationship. “I don’t think women like bastards,” Clark says. “I think antisocial men who behave flirtatiously are either fooling women into thinking they’re not really so bad, or they’re actually demonstrating that they’re not so bad.” ●
with the critic took place at the highest levels. Internal emails presented to the Senate this month show that several executives, including CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier, knew of plans to put pressure on John Buse, a diabetes researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). One email, entitled “Avandia Renegade”, was sent in June 1999 by William Claypool, a senior vicepresident at what was then called SmithKline Beecham, to Tachi Yamada, then chairman of research and development. It accuses Buse of misrepresenting safety data. Claypool suggests warning Buse
not to repeat the claims, with the “punishment” being that “we would complain up his academic line” and to the bodies that gave Buse accreditation for teaching. Yamada’s reply, sent the same day, was copied to Garnier. In it, Yamada discusses the possibility of approaching the chairman of Buse’s department and of suing Buse for “knowingly defaming our product”. “Top officials at GlaxoSmithKline clearly knew what was going on,” says Merrill Goozner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington DC. Neither Yamada nor Claypool could be reached for comment. GSK
spokeswoman Mary Anne Rhyne says the company did not attempt to silence Buse. “GSK was trying to correct a mistake Dr Buse made in his presentation,” she says. “That was troubling to us and we wanted to make sure that our data was accurately presented. We considered internally a number of options, but ultimately we made our concerns known to Dr Buse and he corrected his statements.” Buse also declined to comment. He signed a statement in June stating that he had later changed his thinking on Avandia and that the incident had been “upsetting, but not life-altering”. Jim Giles ● www.newscientist.com