Beauty Treatment: How Old Do I Look?

As a culture, we're obsessed with belying our own age. But according to new research, whether you'll fool someone depends on a surprising mix of factors, including the look on your face and the age of the person guessing. Here's a science-based crib sheet to appearing fresh-faced forever—no makeup or surgery required.

Say cheese!

Young, middle-aged, and older individuals studied thousands of photographs and were asked to guess the ages of the models, who posed with six different facial expressions. Neutral expressions yielded the most accurate results, and fearful expressions made subjects look older. Those making happy faces were consistently rated as younger than they really were. Stereotypes about aging may be to blame, say the researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Yale University. We tend to have positive associations with youth and negative associations with old age. Or it may be that smiling produces what is known as a halo effect—"the perception of a smiling person as generally more positive, more attractive, and younger," psychologist Manuel Voelkle explains.

Ask a youngster

Older people think that everyone is about a year older than their true age, while younger adults are often way off: They tend to guess that older people are much younger than they actually are.

Voelkle thinks that "the discrepancy is due to the fact that older adults have once been young themselves and have more experience with estimating the age of older people."

...Or ask the elderly!

If it's a simple ego boost you're after, an elder may make you blush. Older people rate faces of all ages as equally attractive, according to a recent study in the Journal of Genetic Psychology and the "expertise hypothesis," which posits that people will find others their own age and younger the most attractive.

Quit trying

When older adults look like they are trying to pass as more youthful versions of themselves, younger people see them as less likable and more deceitful, according to a University of Kansas study. Explains psychologist Alexander M. Schoemann: "Young adults dislike older adults who try to invade their group."