Factors affecting attraction - Physical attractiveness

• Physical attractiveness is an important factor in the formation of romantic relationship. It applies to how appealing we find a person's face. There is a general agreement within cultures as to what is considered physically attractive - we seek to form relationships with the most attractive person available
• Shackelford and Larsen found that people with symmetrical faces are rates as more attractive as well as people with neotenous features such as widely separated large eyes and a small nose
• Physical attractiveness may matter because we have preconceived ideas about the personality traits people must have.

  The physical attractiveness stereotype - Dion et al. found that physically attractive people are consistently rated as kind,strong,successful compared to unattractive people. The belief that good looking people have these characteristics makes them more attractive to us , so we behave positively towards them
• Psychologists use the term halo effect to describe how one distinguishable feature tends to have a disproportionate influence on our judgements of a person's other attributes
• The matching hypothesis suggests that we look for partners who are similar to ourselves in terms of physical attractiveness instead of choosing the most appealing people

  Walster et al. designed a study called 'the computer dance'
• Male and female students were invited to dance and were rated for physical attractiveness by objective observers and they also completed a questionnaire about themselves. The data was used by a computer to decide their partner for the evening.
• the hypothesis was not supported. the most liked partners were also the most physically attractive rather than taking their own level of attractiveness into account

  Berschied et al. replicated the study but this time participants were able to select their partner from people of varying degrees of attractiveness - this time participants tended to choose partners who matched them in physical attractiveness
• We tend to seek and choose partners whose attractiveness matches our own. Choice of partner is a compromise, we risk rejection in selecting the most attractive people available so we settle on those who are in our league physically
• There is evidence that physical attractiveness is associated with the halo effect

  Palmer and Peterson found that physical attractive people were rated as more politically knowledgable than unattractive people. this halo effect was so powerful that it persisted even when participants knew that these knowledgeable people had no particular expertise

  • these findings have implications for the political process which suggests that there are dangers for democracy if politicians are judged as suitable based of attractiveness
• Cunningham et al. found that females features like large eyes, small nose and high eyebrows were rated as highly attractive by white, hispanic and asian males. the researchers concluded that what is considered physically attractive is consistent across different societies.

  attractive features are a sign of genetic fitness and therefore maintained in all cultures
• The matching hypothesis is not supported by real world research into dating

  Taylor et al. studied the activity logs of popular online dating sites. it measured actual date choices and not preferences, which was a real world test of the matching hypothesis. it kept with the original hypothesis which concerned realistic as opposed to fantasy choices.

  They found that online daters sought meetings with potential partners who were more physically attractive than them

  • undermines validity
• However, choosing individuals for dating could be considered a different situation from selecting a partner for a romantic relationship. Feingold carried out a meta analysis of 17 studies and found a significant correlation in ratings of physical attractiveness between romantic partners. Just because online daters seek more attractive potential partners doesn't mean they actually get them