Most people believe that the only way to increase their attractiveness is to change or improve their physical appearance.
Fortunately, that’s not the only way to alter your perceived attractiveness.
Why?
Because for years – scientists have been trying to study the effects of non-physical traits on the perception of physical attractiveness.
And as a result of many studies, scientists have discovered various non-physical traits that strongly influences the perception of our physical attractiveness.
In other words, some things can make you seem more attractive to people without you having to change anything about your physical appearance.
Sounds good, right?
Here’s what you will learn in this post:
- The 9 non-physical traits that influence your perceived attractiveness.
- The reason why these non-physical traits affect your perceived attractiveness.
- How to use these traits to become more physically attractive.
Let’s begin…
1. smell.
When you smell good, people automatically perceive you as more attractive.
The sense of smell is the oldest and most sensitive of our senses, studies have shown that our smelling mechanism is related most to our memory and emotions.
I’m sure you’ve smelt something before that reminded you of a person or an event in the past. Right?
Or someone that said something, and you instantly remembered the words of a song you haven’t heard for years.
Or you just simply listened to a song somewhere, and it brought back your childhood memories.
Why does this happen?
The olfactory system used by our brain for smelling is part of the limbic system and is in direct connection with the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for detecting danger and fear, and is often called – the emotional brain).
There’s a traditional technique in Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) called anchoring, and it means that when you smell something in a certain particular event, mood, or moment… next time you come across a similar smell, your mind will trigger all the emotions, memories, and feelings you had before!
Impressive, right?
By using this powerful technique, you can literally change your mood or emotional state from negative to positive in a matter of seconds by anchoring positive experiences.
This anchoring method also works with our other senses.
Self-help gurus and other practitioners use anchoring to trigger positive emotions in their patients and treat mental illnesses related to negative thoughts, such as anxiety and depression.
But you know what else?
Recent studies have found a correlation between scent and sexual attractiveness. It was also found that humans may rely on smell to find potential mates.
Both genders are capable of detecting the smell of one another even without actually seeing them, according to a recent study.
Smell can also affect people’s mood and behavior without their conscious awareness, which helps change their perception of your attractiveness.
Lastly…
Smell can be a major non-physical trait that influences people’s perception of your physical attractiveness.
Which means that people will see you as more physically attractive without you having to change anything about your physical appearance.
2. vocal attractiveness.
Believe it or not, your voice and facial attractiveness are related. The allure of your voice is important to your sexual selection and mate choice.
People perceive you differently when you start talking and they hear your voice. It makes them change whatever first impression they had about you.
When someone from the opposite sex hears your voice, (depending on your voice) they may get a feeling of attraction towards you.
Research have shown that people perceive those with appealing voices to be having more attractive faces and charming personalities.
But what makes a voice attractive?
According to a study, men and women typically agree on which voices they find more attractive.
Research shows that women tend to prefer deeper and more masculine voices in men, and on the other hand – men prefer softer and high-pitched voices in women.
A sexy voice is usually the result of high levels of sex hormones.
Typically, an attractive voice in men is linked to elevated levels of the male hormone testosterone, and a beautiful voice in women is related to elevated levels of the female hormone estrogen.
But you’re probably wondering…
”How can I make my voice more attractive?”
The truth is you don’t have to do anything!
Here’s why:
In a study, researchers found that both men and women’s voices became more attractive when speaking to an attractive stranger.
It’s a natural response when you find someone attractive, your voice will unconsciously become more attractive; your mind does this to increase your chances of attracting those who you find attractive.
Other studies have also found that we may prefer voices that resemble our own.
But remember…
It’s not what you say, but how you say it.
3. posture.
That’s what everyone’s mom used to say.
And it’s true, those with good body posture are perceived as more confident and attractive.
Generally, people with poor posture tend to have a bad social life; they’re usually shy/introverted, and have low-self esteem.
Your posture says a lot about you…
Someone who is always looking down will be perceived as shy, depressed, and unconfident. On the other hand, someone who is mostly standing and walking with a straight posture will be perceived as confident, and more attractive.
But you know what else?
It is known that your feelings and thoughts influence your body posture, but most people don’t know that it also works the other way around… by changing your posture, your thoughts and emotions will also change.
Why don’t you have a good posture?
As a result of modern technology, most people nowadays have developed poor body posture. Some reasons that could cause poor body posture include:
- Negative thoughts and feelings
- Shyness and self-consciousness
- Low energy because of a physical or psychological problem
- Weak muscles
Like I said, your posture influences people’s perception and their opinion about you.
Unfortunately, it seems that nowadays a lot of people have developed many postural problems, and I think one of the most common posture mistakes is:
Leaning on one side.
I used to do this a lot, It seemed very comfortable to just lean on one side and relax, but then I discovered that this was actually a very bad habit—having all your body weight on one side puts a lot of pressure on your spine and may cause serious damages to your lower back and hip area.
But why some people never do this?
I also found that people who never lean on one side tend to have stronger muscles. They may occasionally lean onto one side—but only when they’re tired.
Leaning and putting all your body weight onto one side is a cause of weak muscles, your core and abdominal muscles could be unable to hold your body weight in a balanced and equally distributed manner.
In summary, you will need to strengthen your core muscles in order to have great posture, so that it will improve your health and enhance your perceived physical attractiveness.
4. personality.
looks or personality?
Most people believe that personality and physical attractiveness are very separate things and are not related. They often debate on which is more important in relationships and life, not knowing that personality plays a factor in the judgment of their physical attractiveness.
Have you ever met someone that you thought was just average-looking, but after some time—your perception of theirattractiveness increased?
This is a very common experience.
Several studies have found that some personality traits influences people’s perception of your physical attractiveness.
One of the non-physical traits that help boost your perceived physical attractiveness is:
Familiarity.
From a psychological perspective, familiarity basically means that we like people who we are familiar with. We prefer people that we know and see every day, and we find them to be more physically attractive.
This means that even if someone didn’t like your looks the first time you met them, as time goes on— their perception of your attractiveness may change to the better, due to the influence of your personality traits on their perception of your attractiveness.
This also means that you shouldn’t worry much about first impressions. Why? because contrary to popular beliefs—first impressions aren’t constant, they can be changed as time goes on.
It’s an interesting psychological fact, we like people whom we meet repeatedly, we’re more likely to form relationships with them.
Just think about your best friends and romantic partners.
Chances are you’ve probably met them at work, class, or other places you go to regularly.
Another personality trait that could influence your perception of attractiveness is:
Extraversion.
Researchers have found that extroverts are perceived to be more attractive (only for short-term relationships) than introverts. Perhaps, because they are more social, energetic, confident and have more friends; but they were also found to be less trustworthy.
Generally, positive personality traits such as honesty, agreeableness, helpfulness are found to have an influence on people’s perception of your attractiveness. People will see you as better looking over time after they know about your other non-physical qualities.
5. social behavior.
Awkward people have fewer friends.
This is common sense.
If you can’t hold a conversation, people won’t stick around with you.
You’ll need to understand how to use your social behavior in a way that makes people feel good around you.
Social behavior is basically the social actions that we use to socialize with other people, and every social action is designed to induce a specific response.
The way you react and respond to certain social situations can affect people’s perception of your physical attractiveness.
A study found that physical attractiveness does not necessarily compensate for poor communication skills.
It is well-known that beautiful people have a higher level of social awkwardness.
This means that if you’ve strong interpersonal skills, you’ll be considered as more physically attractive.
And the only way to develop your social competency is by:
Interacting with people.
The more you interact with people, the more socially competent you’ll become.
Even if you think you are socially awkward, you’ll need to force yourself to socialize with people. Because this is the only way to improve your social skills and behaviors. As time goes on, your fear of meeting and interacting with people will almost become non-existent.
But here’s a social hack or shortcut that will dramatically improve your social competency:
Most people feel really uncomfortable around shy and awkward people. Why? Because shy and awkward people are perfectionists, they’re very insecure, self-conscious and are afraid of making mistakes in social situations, thus they prefer to stay silent most of the time.
… And no one likes to stay around someone who never opens his mouth.
Therefore, if you want to improve your social competency, have more friends and increase your perceived physical attractiveness, you have to: talk to people.
But you can’t just go out there and start talking to a bunch of random strangers, just start with people you are familiar with (or you’ve seen before), try to make your conversation with them as long as possible, ask questions, let them speak, make them laugh, and make sure you show interest without coming off as needy.
But you’re probably thinking, ”this is just not me, I can’t do this!”
This is what I used to think too. but after years of analyzing human behavior and studying the psychology of social interactions, I discovered that if you want to be a cool person, someone who people enjoy talking to and listening to, you’ll have to be in an emotional state of:
But after years of analyzing human behavior and studying the psychology of social interactions, I discovered that if you want to become a cool person, someone who people enjoy talking to and listening to, you’ll have to be in an emotional state of:
Relaxation.
If you’re relaxed, stress-free and not worried about the outcome of social interactions, then you’ll be more confident when talking to people, you’ll have more influence on the other person or people, and without much effort from you… you’ll be perceived as more physically attractive.
6. words.
The words that you use can reveal a lot about your personality, life experiences, emotions, desires, level of self-confidence and other traits.
They can change your perception of the world, and other people’s perception of you.
Why?
Because the words that you use can influence people’s current mood and emotions.
If what you say is mostly negative, your words will alter people’s mood and emotional state, and they’ll have a negative perception of you, and they may avoid talking to you in the future, because no one likes negativity.
On the other hand, if you mostly use words that are positive, people will feel good when you talk to them, and they will perceive you as more physically attractive.
Why?
Because positive words produce positive feelings, and if people feel good around you, then they’ll you see you as more attractive.
Fortunately, a new study has found that humans use positive words more often than negative words.
But make sure you use more positive words in your talk, and words that convey self-confidence.
7. non-verbal behavior.
Words are the most important part of human communication.
Right?
Wrong.
When people think of communication, they usually think of the words they say or use.
Most people are unaware of what they’re body is saying in social interactions.
Your body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact are constantly sending unconscious messages to people you’re interacting with, and they help strengthen your message.
According to research studies, we communicate more with non-verbal behaviors than with words.
But why is this important for perceptions of physical attractiveness?
If humans use non-verbal movements to communicate with other people, then this means that we evaluate other people’s attractiveness based on this non-verbal signals.
For example…
People are more likely to like and trust someone who matches their body language. NLP practitioners use this technique (Mirroring) to build rapport with people.
Generally, men who display dominant body language are found to be more attractive to women. On the other hand, women who display submissive body language are found to be more attractive to men.
Here’s an infographic that explains how to use body language to become more attractive.
Conclusion
When people try to improve their physical appearance, they often only give importance to the physical aspects of beauty.
Perhaps, they’re not aware of the other qualities that influence the perception of physical attractiveness, or because they want to be considered attractive by everyone, especially strangers.
Strangers will find you less attractive.
While these above non-physical traits of physical attractiveness may not be visible to strangers, they make a big difference to the people that you are familiar with, because they know your other non-physical qualities, and it affects their perception of your physical attractiveness.
