physical attractiveness

• Physical attractiveness is important at the start of the relationship as it brings people together. However, it’s also an important feature in making the relationship last. McNulty found that it’s important after several years of marriage. 

  Physical attractiveness usually refers to how appealing we find a persons face.
• Some assume that we seek to form a relationship with the most attractive person available. Some of the features of faces we find attractive include:

  -baby face features (neotenous); these features are though to trigger protective and caring instincts. 

  -symmetry- symmetrical faces are seen to be more attractive. It is though that this signal of genetic fitness. 
• The halo effect


  Physical attractiveness may also matter because of the preconceived ideas we have about traits of attractive people. Physically attractive people are rated as kind, strong, sociable and successful compared to unattractive people. Dion et al -‘what is beautiful is good’. The belief that good looking people will have such characteristics makes them more attractive to us, so we behave more positively towards them- a self fulfilling prophecy. 
• The matching hypothesis 


  belief we don’t select most attractive person as potential partner, instead attracted to people who approximately ‘matches us’ in physical attractiveness. consider our own attractiveness value when seeking romantic partner. Individuals must first assess their own value in the eyes of potential partner, then choose those that would be most likely attracted to them. By choosing a person that matches your social desirability, it maximises your chance of finding a partner. 
• The matching hypothesis 


  Walster said we have to make realistic choices rather than choosing the most desirable people, in order to avoid rejection. We have to compromise. Evolution dictates that we should choose the most attractive person but we have to balance this against being rejected every time we try to form a relationship with someone. We tend not to go for people who are ‘out of our league’. So our ideal partner and our actual partner might be different. 
• strength of matching hypothesis is research support. original study by walster didn’t actually support the hypothesis. this may have been because it used an unreliable measure of attachment as observers only had a few seconds to judge the attractiveness of the pps. Feingold carried out a meta analysis of 17 studies and found a significant correlation in ratings of attractiveness between romantic partners. This is a more realistic study than Walsters as it looked at actual partners, suggesting that the matching hypothesis is a plausible explanation of physical attractiveness to a partner. 
• One strength is there are cultural consistency is what is considered attractive. Cunningham et al found large eyes, small nose and prominent cheekbones in females were rated as highly attractive by white, Asian and Hispanic males. Wheeler and kim found that Korean and us students judged physically attractive people top be more trustworthy, mature, concerned for others and friendly. This consistency suggests physical attractiveness may have evolutionary roots, supporting the evolutionary theory. 
• Weakness is not all people attach importance to physical attractiveness. Research shown those who scored highly on the MACHO scale (sexist attitudes) more influenced by physical attractiveness when judging likeability from a photograph/ basic biological data. As low scorers were less sensitive to this influence, would seem that there are individual differences in the importance placed upon physical attractiveness. This suggests that the effects of physical attractiveness can be moderated by other factors and may not be as significant a consideration in relationship formation for all partners.
• Weakness is that there is research to contradict the matching hypothesis. Taylor et al studied the activity logs of a particular dating site-this was a good test of the matching hypothesis because it was measuring actual data choices. Taylor et al found online daters sought dates with partners who were more attractive than themselves and did not consider their own level of attractiveness. This suggests that the matching hypothesis may no longer be appropriate for explaining physical attraction preferences.