The Look of Love: Evolution and Nonverbal Signs and Signals of Attraction

Nonverbal communication plays an instrumental role in the process of meeting someone in a potential romantic encounter, starting from determining if they are attractive, if they are interested in a relationship with us, and whether we would be compatible. In this chapter we highlight not just the nonverbal signs and signals of attraction, but attempt to articulate a deeper evolutionary derived meaning and reason for them. We examine the static features of faces and bodies that we find attractive, their relationship to health, fertility, and dominance (reproductive fitness), and then move to the dynamic nonverbal actions suggesting romantic interest, such as arousal and engagement, and finish by articulating those nonverbal markers that indicate attention, trust, and commitment. We hope this exploration of the static and dynamic characteristics of people will better illustrate how evolution can explain why and when people are attracted to each other.