November 07, 2004
Male mating rituals laid bare
John Elliott and Sarah Keenlyside
THEY slap their fellow males on the back, sprawl across sofas and shoot repeated glances at target females. The moves of men on the prowl in bars have been analysed by academics using techniques more commonly associated with observing the mating rituals of apes and other wild animals.
The researchers found that success came from expansive “dominant male” gestures towards fellow men. Leaving women in no doubt that they were the focus of attention was also key — 13 glances in half an hour was the average for a “pull”.
The study suggests men use the moves to demonstrate their status, health and general prowess to females who they have not met before. It is bad news, however, for more diffident men who keep their arms folded or shift politely to allow others to sit down — they betray their inferior place in the pecking order and probably wreck their chances of chatting up females.
“Males who successfully made ‘contact’ courtship initiation with females exhibited different body language in this pre-contact phase than did males who did not make contact with females,” write the Austrian-American research team in this month’s edition of the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour.
According to the researchers, the necessary traits included significantly more glancing behaviours, “space-maximisation movements”, touching of other men and less closed body movements.
The findings were supported by Desmond Morris, the veteran anthropologist and author of The Naked Ape. “These sorts of observations are valuable because they tell you what happens in real life,” he said. “Glance-direction is very important. The man who pays attention is going to have a real advantage.”
The research was carried out among men aged between 21 and 34. The academics secretly observed them in bars during evenings out, analysing their behaviour in detail for half an hour, then following their success afterwards.
In the hour after the detailed observations about a third of the men managed to talk to women for more than a minute. The posture and actions of this group were markedly different from those who failed to make contact with female strangers.
An early giveaway that a man was plotting an approach was when he started stroking his beard area — an implicit signal, said the researchers, to draw attention to facial features.
The average of 13 glances at women for successful men compared with six for the “wallflowers”. Gestures among the successful also included jokingly punching their male friends, tapping them on the shoulder or elbowing them in the ribs.
They also made an average of 19 “space maximisation” moves — such as expansive gestures or resting their arms on seats adjacent to the ones on which they were sitting; the men who flopped made just 10 of these gestures. In addition, the lothario group were more likely to stand or sit with their legs wide apart and hands on hips.
The researchers believe women observe a man’s body language from a distance to judge whether he is interested in them, friendly, and whether he has the social and physical characteristics of a potential mate.
The giveaway sign of a man not about to “score” is his crossed arms and drooped shoulders. He is also the one likely to be prodded or slapped by the friend who will later leave him at the bar as he chats up a woman.
The research team, based at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology at Vienna University, and at Bucknell University in America, includes Professor Karl Grammer, a senior social anthropologist, and two American researchers, Lee Ann Renninger and Professor T Joel Wade.
They write that although men usually make the first attempt to start a conversation, they wait for body-language cues from women — such as a glance, then a look away — before approaching.
Their aim in researching the paper, called Getting That Female Glance: Patterns And Consequences of Male Nonverbal Behaviour in Courtship Contexts, was to find what prompts a woman to send a signal to a man that she is happy for him to approach.
Nick Neave, an evolutionary psychologist at Northumbria University, said: “Females like males who are high status and who have the respect of their peers. Men have a pecking order — if there is a group of guys, there will be a hierarchy.”
Christoph Atkins, a 22-year-old accountant from Cambridge, said the research accurately reflected his experience of being “on the pull”. He said: “Making eye contact, giving a little smile and then looking away a few times works. You can tell that way if she likes you or not. And when you’re with other men you try to draw attention to yourself.”
Victoria Orme, 24, a civil servant from Birmingham, said: “You notice when they preen themselves. They think we don’t notice all that stuff but we do.”
She added: “Eye contact is very important — as long as they’re looking at your eyes and not anywhere south of there.”
