What makes someone attractive? Attractiveness is defined as certain qualities or features that make a person more desirable and alluring to others.
What is it exactly that makes someone so attractive?
Which of these traits do we look for in a friend or partner? According to psychology, here are eight of the most common things that make a person attractive.
Availability
Availability is an important factor in how much we find someone attractive. Despite the common belief that we need to act distant to make people we like interested in us, the opposite is actually true.
When we’re developing new relationships, it’s important to find someone who can physically and emotionally be there for us. And the more responsive, attentive and reliable someone is, the more we will come to value our relationship with them.
Confidence
Studies have shown that confidence is the most attractive quality a person can have. When someone is confident, you’re less likely to second-guess yourself, and you know and believe in your value. People notice when someone is confident in who they are and what they believe in.
Although it’s common to imagine someone who is confident as outgoing and charismatic, confidence can also be quiet. Knowing your worth, believing in your strengths, and taking pride in who you are is what makes you confident, regardless of if you’re outgoing or not.
Uniqueness
Although there are 7 billion people in the world, each of us is unique in our own way. No one looks, talks, act, thinks, or feels in exactly the same way, and that’s what makes us so amazing. But some people prefer to hide their uniqueness to fit in.
When we learn to embrace what makes us special, whether it’s our looks, experiences, ideas, or little quirks, we open ourselves up to the possibility of meeting new, engaging, and like-minded people.
Kindness
Kindness is a quality that lots of people want in a friend or romantic partner. In a study conducted by Baskerville and colleagues in the year 2000. They found that people tend to like people who showed more kindness, sympathy, and compassion than those who showed lesser levels of kindness. At the end of the day, we all want to be with someone who treats us as well as we would like to be treated.
Intelligence
Intelligence is attractive because it often leads to stimulating conversations, deep insights, and a new way to look at the world. A recent study in 2018 by psychologists Gignac and others found that for most participants, there is a particular IQ score that maximises an individual’s attractiveness but any higher would make them seem less desirable.
In other words, people are attracted to those they perceive as more intelligent than them, but not so much that they become too intimidating or out of reach to talk to.
Passion
People who are passionate tend to be driven, determined, and self-motivated, but more importantly, they have things that matter a lot to them and that they care about significantly.
They have an interest and big dreams that appeal to the optimist in all of us, which can inspire us to push ourselves to be better as well.
Humour
Research has shown that we tend to be more attracted to people who make us laugh, possibly because it shows cleverness and creativity. So it should come as no surprise that having a good sense of humour ranks high on the list of characteristics people look for in an ideal friend or partner.
In heterosexual relationships, women in particular, gravitate towards men they find funny whilst men favour women who are playful and good-humoured.
Attitude
Whilst it’s no secret that a person’s looks have a lot to do with how attractive we find them, there’s a lot more to it than someone’s physical traits. Psychologists have found that it takes us only 30 seconds to decide whether we find someone attractive and our attitude can make or break someone’s impression of us.
The way we dress, act, and carry ourselves also plays a part in how people perceive us. When meeting new people. It can be helpful to take note of these things as they can make a world of a difference.
While it’s common for us to base attractiveness off of a person’s physical traits. Attractiveness can actually be more complex than that. And though we all have different ideas of what makes someone more or less attractive. These are some of the most common and widely agreed upon traits.
So, do you agree with the things we’ve mentioned in this article? Do you also find these traits and qualities attractive? Leave us a comment down below.
