Study confirms women are born to flirt

The world of science has confirmed many women's credo - girlish wiles count for much.

In a study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers set up experiments to measure the effects of feminine charm within negotiations.

They defined this beguiling quality as a management technique available to women, combining warmth and friendliness, flattery, playfulness and sex appeal.

Such behaviour was discovered to boost economic benefits, improving the prospects of bargaining success by up to a third. Professor Laura Kray, of the University of California, Berkeley, US, led the investigation. "Women are uniquely confronted with a trade-off in terms of being perceived as strong versus warm. Using feminine charm in negotiation is a technique that combines both," he confirms.

Women might be seen as having the advantage in the art of "emotional intelligence", but that is not to say that men are powerless in the flirting department. The most charming men are the most dangerous - one would do anything for them. Leaders like Bill Clinton have this quality in spades.

Indeed, long before the dawning of the feminist era, charm had the status of our most ancient weapon.

Helen of Troy was the world's earliest and most epic flirt. Carried off by force as a child - her marriage dictated by geopolitics - Spartan Helen was history's most charming pugilist, working with the means available to her. Even stiff-shirted Hector was won over.

Still, such wiles are not without their perils: witness Anne Boleyn's seven-year flirtation, followed by a rapid demise. Nor are they without their risks: for every artful Baroness Thatcher, there is an Edwina Currie, clumsily vamping into the void.