If you want to be as attractive as Tom Cruise or Taylor Swift, cancel the glamorous makeover and focus instead on your behaviour. Fans and interviewers alike have described their remarkable charisma.
Chatty, smiley and responsive, it's as if Cruise and Swift are truly interested and fully present in every social setting they’re in.
This chimes with the psychological literature. Looks can, of course, be a magnet at first, but the more you interact with someone and get to know them, the more it’s their personality – and the chemistry between you – that matters.
With that in mind, here are five psychological ways to boost your own attractiveness.
Act like an extravert
For first impressions, studies suggest that people tend to rate extraverts as more appealing.
That’s because they exhibit more positive emotions, such as seeming more energetic, smiling more often and having a more upbeat and confident tone of voice.
They are drawn to social interactions, after all.
Even if you’re not a natural extravert, these are all things you can easily do with a little effort.
If you’re highly introverted, you could take comfort from research suggesting that introverts enjoy acting extraverted much more than they think they will!
Be engaged and receptive
Fans charmed by Tom Cruise say that he makes it seem like talking to you is the only thing on his mind.
Comedian and former late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert has praised how attentive Taylor Swift was when she met his then 14-year-old daughter.
All of this ties together with research that shows people are rated as more likeable when they seem engaged and ask follow-up questions.
So, another simple way to boost your attractiveness is to show a keen interest in other people and follow through with genuine curiosity.
Be kind
Another recurring finding is that people who act kinder and more altruistic tend to be rated as more attractive. This has shown up in various ways.
For instance, there’s research on people’s preferences for romantic partners that shows kindness comes out as the most, or one of the most, sought-after traits.
There’s also work showing that faces are rated as more physically attractive simply by virtue of being attributed to someone described as being kind.
All this suggests that being generous and helpful, and being prepared to put other people first, can all help you to appear more attractive.
Don't take yourself too seriously
It’s become something of a cliché that people seek a good sense of humour in potential romantic partners – ‘GSOH’ having become a staple of lonely-hearts ads.
Research backs this up because, in speed dating studies and similar experiments, people tend to rate witty people as more attractive.
Trying too hard to be funny is bound to backfire, though, so a more sensible lesson to take from this line of research is probably to lighten up, be willing to see the funny side of things and avoid taking yourself too seriously.
Get creative
One theory says humour is appealing because it acts as a signal of creativity and intelligence. In turn, being creative is thought to be attractive because it signals being a useful person to have around.
This dovetails with research showing that poets and artists tend to have more sexual partners than average in their lifetimes – tentative evidence that other people find them more attractive.
More convincing, perhaps, is research that found the same faces were rated as more attractive when paired with a more creative story that the face-owner supposedly wrote.
Taken all together, if you can show signs of being creative – maybe share a poem or two! – then this is yet another way to boost your attractiveness.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Michael Shannon, Devizes) 'How can I make myself more attractive?'
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