Physical attractiveness studies, in brief
the number 42 said:
a bit of social Darwinism from Magro (1997):
"Why Barbie Is Beautiful. A study of a long series of hominid fossils reveals a progressive loss of some physical attributes and the acquisition of other characteristics. One wonders why evolution has been remodeling the human form in what often seem to be nonadaptive ways. A curious, superficially frivolous test may offer some insights, some of which may be profound.
As with all social Darwinism, what's the evidence?
Furnham, Adrian; Mistry, Disha; McClelland, Alastair. The influence of age of the face and the waist to hip ratio on judgements of female attractiveness and traits. Personality & Individual Differences. Vol 36(5) Mar 2004, 1171-1185.
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(from the journal abstract) Various studies have established that the waist to hip ratio (WHR) influences perceptions of female attractiveness. The present study investigated the assumption that ageing of the face will exert a greater influence than WHR in ratings of female attractiveness, when WHR in females is manipulated within the normal range (0.67-0.85). In a within subjects design, 100 participants (mean age 23.4 years) rated 27 photographs on the following scales: youthfulness, attractiveness, fertility, healthiness, fecundity (likelihood of being pregnant), attractive to the opposite sex, a good mother and sexiness. The photographs had been digitally manipulated in terms of three levels of age of the face (young, middle, older: range around 20-40 years) and three levels of WHR (low, medium, high). Regressional analyses indicated that although WHR was found to have a significant influence on all the above attributes, the age of the face was found to have a greater effect. Results are interpreted in terms of age being a sexually selected trait providing potential mates with information concerning phenotypic and genetic quality.
Wade, T. Joel; Irvine, Kristin; Cooper, Marjorie. Racial characteristics and individual differences in women's evaluations of men's facial attractiveness and personality. Personality & Individual Differences. Vol 36(5) Mar 2004, 1083-1092.
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(from the journal abstract) Prior research investigating the perception of men's faces has not considered the hybrid nature of black and white racial characteristics. Fifteen faces ranging from "pure" black or white to "hybrid" black and white were rated in the present research. Main effects for race of face were hypothesized. Predominantly black faces were expected to receive higher ratings for dominance and gender identity characteristics. Predominantly white faces were expected to receive the highest attractiveness rating and higher ratings for nurturant and expressive characteristics. The results supported the hypotheses and are discussed in terms of parental investment theory and existing research.
Sugiyama, Lawrence S. Is beauty in the context-sensitive adaptations of the beholder? Shiwiar use of waist-to-hip ratio in assessments of female mate value. Evolution & Human Behavior. Vol 25(1) Jan 2004, 51-62.
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The proposition that universal standards of female beauty reflect adaptations for reproductive value assessment does not preclude cross-cultural variation that is contingent on local environmental variation. Cross-cultural tests of the hypothesis that men have adaptations generating preference for low female waist-to-hip ratios (WHR) have used stimuli that were not scaled to local conditions, and have confounded WHR with level of body fat. I present a reassessment of the WHR hypothesis, showing that when effects of WHR and body weight are less confounded, and local environmental context is taken into account, it appears that Shiwiar forager-horticulturist men of Ecuadorian Amazonia may use both WHR and body weight in assessments of female sexual attractiveness in a manner consistent with the prediction of a context-sensitive preference psychology.
Jones, B. C; Little, A. C; Feinberg, D. R; Penton-Voak, I. S; Tiddeman, B. P; Perrett, D. I. The relationship between shape symmetry and perceived skin condition in male facial attractiveness. Evolution & Human Behavior. Vol 25(1) Jan 2004, 24-30.
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Studies have shown that male faces high in symmetry are judged more attractive than faces low in symmetry even in images where visual cues to facial symmetry are reduced. These findings suggest that there are correlates of facial symmetry that influence male facial attractiveness independently of symmetry itself. Apparent healthiness of facial skin is one factor that may influence male facial attractiveness and covary with facial symmetry. Here, using real and composite male faces, we found that males with symmetric faces were perceived as having healthier facial skin than males with relatively asymmetric faces (Study 1), and that facial colour and texture cues were sufficient to maintain an attractiveness-symmetry relationship when the influence of facial shape was minimised (Study 2). These findings suggest that colour and texture cues contribute to the relationship between attractiveness and symmetry in real faces.
Olby, Brian Christopher. Perceived attractiveness and personality attributes: A gender and racial analysis. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: the Sciences & Engineering. Vol 63(9-B), 2003, 4420
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Subjects rated 12 female body shapes with respect to their physical attractiveness, and the extent to which they would be expected to possesses various personality characteristics. The shapes were varied using 3 levels of overall weight and 4 levels of body shapeliness. The sample was modified to control for socioeconomic factors and results are based on 297 undergraduates from Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic racial backgrounds. Loglinear analyses revealed that men and women, regardless of racial background, rated shapely underweight females as most physically attractive, sexy, and ideal for a woman, followed by normal weight figures of similar proportion. African Americans, women in particular, judged the shapely normal weight figures more favorably than the other subjects. Multidimensional scaling and subsequent frequency analyses showed that those figures judged as most attractive, sexy, and ideal were also expected to be fairly emotionally stable, and most successful and interpersonally competitive, but least faithful, kind, and family-oriented. Overweight female shapes, while rated as least physically attractive, sexy, and emotionally stable, were expected to be most family-oriented, kind, and faithful. Shapely normal weight figures were judged to be attractive and sexy, and were assumed to possesses a moderate amount of the personality traits in question. The results suggest that Caucasian and Hispanic subjects prefer shapely underweight women, while African Americans, particularly women, find shapely underweight and shapely normal weight women to be physically appealing. African American women also rate shapely normal weight women favorably with respect to personality traits. This perceptual difference may help inoculate them from developing eating disturbances and account for the low prevalence rate of eating disorders in African Americans compared to women of other racial backgrounds. It is suggested that future research identify those beliefs, values or behaviors that seem to inoculate African American women from developing eating disorders. Once identified, mental health professionals may facilitate their development in those women who are likely to have eating problems.
Johnston, Victor S. Female facial beauty: The fertility hypothesis. Pragmatics & Cognition. Vol 8(1) 2000, 107-122.
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Notes that prior research on facial beauty has suggested that the average female face in a population is perceived to be the most attractive face. The author argues that this finding, however is based on an image processing methodology that appears to be flawed. An alternative method for generating attractive faces is described and the findings using this procedure are compared with the reports of other experimenters. The results suggest that (1) beautiful female faces are not average, but vary from the average in a systematic manner and (2) female beauty can best be explained by a sexual selection viewpoint, whereby selection favors cues that are reliable indicators of fertility.
Soler, C; Nunez, M; Gutierrez, R; Nunez, J; Medina, P; Sancho, M; Alvarez, J; Nunez, A. Facial attractiveness in men provides clues to semen quality. Evolution & Human Behavior. Vol 24(3) May 2003, 199-207.
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Facial attractiveness has been related to health in both men and women. Certain psychological, physiological, and secondary sex characteristics have been used as accurate markers of hormonal and developmental health. The main objective of this study was to investigate the capacity of women to select males of high reproductive quality based on their facial attractiveness. A total of 66 males were included in the study. Each of them provides a semen sample, and frontal and lateral photographs were taken. Semen analysis was made according to standard WHO (1999) guidelines for morphology, motility, and concentration. Moreover, a Sperm Index (SI) was calculated as the principal component of these parameters. In Study 1, 66 women rated the attractiveness, as a possible permanent couple, of pictures of all 66 men. In Study 2, the pictures of a subset of 12 males were randomly selected from three semen quality subgroups (terciles named good, normal, and bad, according to the value of the SI). These 12 pictures were rated on attractiveness by two independent sets of women (N=88 and N=76). Facial attractiveness ratings were significantly (P<.05) and positively correlated with sperm morphology, motility, and SI, but not with concentration, for all the women sets.
