Is flirting real? Or just misunderstanding?

“She was totally flirting with you, ask her out.”

“No, she wasn’t. She was just being polite.”

Misunderstandings about flirting could possibly lead to awkwardness or perhaps accusations of sexual harassment. How can we determine what other people mean when they smile at us? Can there be a unique, recognizable facial expression representing flirting — and when there is, what does it convey, and how effective is it?

Although flirting is said a lot in the overall media, and examples are everywhere, there is comparatively little scientific work on this issue of flirting, its underlying mechanics and function.

Now, a paper by researchers in the University of Kansas was published in the Journal of Sex Research analyzing whether flirting has a specific facial cue effectively used by women to indicate interest in a guy.

“There are very few scientific articles out there that have systematically studied this well-known phenomenon,” said Omri Gillath, professor of psychology at KU, “None of these studies have identified the flirting facial expression.”

The researchers discovered internal states — for example being sexually or romantically interested in someone — can be conveyed to other people nonverbally through facial expression.

“Across our six studies, we found most men were able to recognize a certain female facial expression as representing flirting, It has a unique morphology, and it’s different from expressions that have similar features — for example, smiling.”