A new research suggests that during a short get-to-know-you conversation people show they're attracted in a way that matches their flirting style.
Researcher Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas said that this is the first study to show that different ways of communicating attraction reveal a person's flirting style, adding "how you flirt says a lot about what flirting means to you."
Hall breaks down flirting styles into physical, traditional, sincere, polite and playful categories.
Hall and his team coded 36 verbal flirting behaviors, such as making compliments, asking questions and revealing information, and nonverbal flirting behaviors, such as leg-crossing, palming, leaning forward, playing with objects and nodding.
Researchers found that as people became more attracted to their conversation partner, they showed that attraction in ways that revealed their flirting style, said Hall.
The researchers noted people with the sincere style, who communicate attraction through self-disclosure and focused attention, were attentive and less fidgety in the short interaction. Female sincere flirts laughed and smiled more, and more frequently showed a telltale sign of interest, the coy gaze, Hall said.
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They also discovered males who were traditional flirts (those who believed men should make the first move and women should be more passive) were more likely to lean into the interaction and adopt an open body posture. Traditional females acted in more demure way, by palming, or showing their wrists and hands, and gently teasing their conversational partner.
Hall said that a polite flirt tends to be very hands-off and respectful, but as you can imagine, this type of flirting isn't obvious to the people they're attracted to, adding that they lean back, create even more space and are more even in verbal tone. For most people, it signals a lack of closeness, but polite flirts do it more the more attracted they become.
They found that physical flirts, those who express sexual interest through body language, offered fewer compliments when they were attracted to a potential romantic match. Moreover, these usually self-assured physical flirts were a bit stymied talking alone in a room, one-on-one.
The study is published in Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.