physical attractiveness

    Cards (19)

    • Shackleford and Larsen (1997) found people with symmetrical faces are rated as more attractive. This is because it may be an honest signal of genetic fitness (it's difficult to fake). People are also attracted to faces with neotenous features.
      • Neotenus (baby-face) features e.g. widely separates and large eyes, a delicate chin, a small nose- because these trigger a protective and caring instinct - a valuable resource for females wanting to reproduce.
      • Physical attractiveness is not only important at the start of the relationship. McNulty et al (2008) found evidence that initial attractiveness that bought the partners together continued to be an important feature after marriage, for at least several years.
    • Physical attractiveness: how appealing we find a person's face. This is a general agreement within and across cultures. It is thought to be an important factor in the formation of romantic relationships. There exists an assumption that we seek to form relationships with the most attractive person available.
    • Explanation of the importance of attractiveness is the halo effect:
      The Halo effect is the idea that people who are judged to be attractive are typically perceived in a positive light. E.g. Dion et al (1972) found that attractive people are consistently rated as successful, kind and sociable when compared with unattractive people. This means that we not only believe that good-looking people are more physically attractive, we expect them to have other desirable characteristics as well and tend to behave more positively towards them.
    • continuing halo effect:
      The halo effect causes a disproportionate influence on judgement of a person's others attributes.
    • Consequences of being attractive: Physical attractiveness leads to the physical attractiveness stereotype. This suggests that attractive people are kind, strong, sociable and successful compared to unattractive people. This belief makes them even more attractive to us, so we behave positively towards them.
      This in turn makes them more likely to act kindly etc. (a self-fulfilling prophecy), which makes them even more attractive to us.
    • continuing consequences of being attractive:
      This becomes a halo effect - one distinguishing feature of a person (their physical attractiveness in this case) disproportionately influences our judgements of their other attributes (their personality).
    • Matching hypothesis (Walster et al 1966)
      • Hypothesis states that people choose romantic partners who are roughly of similar physical attractiveness to each other. To do this we have to make a realistic judgement about our own ‘value’ to a potential partner
      • Our choice of partner is basically a compromise. We desire the most physically attractive partner possible for all sorts of evolutionary, social, cultural and psychological reasons.
    • continuing matching hypothesis;
      • However, we balance this against the wish to avoid being rejected by someone ‘out of our league’, that is someone who is very unlikely to consider us physically attractive. 
      • In terms of physical attractiveness there’s a difference between what we would like in an ideal partner and what we are prepared to settle for
    • Procedure of matching hypothesis;
      • In order to test the matching hypothesis. Walster et al advertised a ‘computer dance’ for new students at the University of Minnesota
      • From the large number of students who purchased tickets- 376 males and 376 females were randomly selected to take part in the study. 
      • When they came to pick up their tickets, 4 student accomplices surreptitiously rated each of them for physical attractiveness.
    • continuing procedure:
      • Ppts were then asked to complete a lengthy questionnaire (e.g. to assess personality, intelligence, etc). They were told that the data gathered from these questionnaires would be used to allocate their ideal partner for the evening of the dance.
      • The pairing was done completely randomly
      • During the intermission part of the dance, ppts were asked to complete a questionnaire about their dates, with a follow up questionnaire distributed 6 months after the dance
    • Weakness (individual differences);
      Some people do not seem to attach much importance to physical attractiveness. For example, Towhey (1979) asked male and female participants to rate how much they would like a target individual based on their photograph and some biological information. The participants also completed a questionnaire - the MACHO scale - designed to measure sexist attitudes and behaviours.
    • continuing weakness (individual differences)
      Towhey found that the participants who scored highly on the scale were more influenced by the physical attractiveness of the target when making their judgement of like ability. Low scorers were less sensitive to this influence. This shows that the effects of physical attractiveness can be moderated by other factors, and so challenges the notion that it is a significant consideration in relationship formation for all potential partners.
    • Strength (research support for the halo effect); 
      Palmer and Peterson (2012) found that physically attractive people were rated as more politically knowledgeable and competent than unattractive people.This halo effect was so powerful that it persisted even when participants knew that these knowledgeable people had no particular expertise. This has obvious implications for the political process. Perhaps there are dangers for democracy if politicians are judged as suitable for office merely because they are considered physically attractive by enough voters.
    • continuing strength (research support for the halo effect)
      The existence of the halo effect has been found to apply in many other areas of everyday life, confirming that physical attractiveness is an important factor in the initial formation of relationships, romantic or otherwise.
    • Strength (research support for the matching hypothesis):
      Ironically the original research study that attempted to confirm the matching hypothesis failed to do so (Walster et al. 1966). However, this may be because the measurement of attractiveness was not reliable. The raters who had to judge the attractiveness of the participants only had a few seconds to do so. However, it is fair to say that there is some support for the hypothesis in its narrow form as referring to physical attractiveness only.
    • conitnuing strength (research support for the matching hypothesis)
      Feingold (1988) carried out a meta-analysis of 17 studies and found a significant correlation in ratings of attractiveness between romantic partners. This is especially supportive of the matching hypothesis because the studies looked at actual partners, which is a more realistic approach.
    • Weakness (role of cultural influences):
      Research shows that what is considered physically attractive is remarkably consistent across cultures. Cunningham et al. (1995) found that female features of large eyes, prominent cheekbones, small nose and high eyebrows were rated as highly attractive by white, Hispanic and Asian males. The physical attractiveness stereotype is also culturally pervasive.
    • continuing weakness (role of cultural influences)
      Wheeler and Kim (1997) found that Korean and American students judged physically attractive people to be more trustworthy, concerned for other people, mature and friendly. It seems that the stereotype is just as strong in collectivist cultures as it is in individualist ones.