Chapter 6: Physical attractiveness

Ways people have historically attempted to enhance their appearance They have either gained or lost weight; increased or decreased their muscle tone; darkened or lightened their skin tone; darkened or lightened their hair; curled, crimped, or straightened their hair; acquired or removed facial hair; added or removed tattoos; cut or extended their fingernails; and stained or bleached their teeth. They have also capped, decorated, filed, straightened, and replaced their teeth; worn wigs and hair extensions; shaved their heads; grown out their hair; cut and styled their hair; plucked and re-configured their eyebrows; painted their nails; mortified (i.e., abraded, pierced, scarred, and even branded) their flesh; had flesh surgically removed; had fat surgically removed; and had unwanted wrinkles and indentations Botoxed or lasered out of existence. They have also implanted things in their flesh; attached things to their flesh; and applied to their flesh various colorful and colorless creams, unguents, ointments, and emoluments.

Facial features associated with perceived attractiveness The body types that men consider attractive in women has varied a lot in different cultures and across different historical periods. On the other hand, the facial features that men consider attractive in women have been far more consistent across different cultures and across different historical periods. The “ideal facial features” for both men and women have been studied by Michael Cunningham and his colleagues.

What specific facial characteristics contribute to men’s judgments that certain female faces are attractive? According to the findings of Michael Cunningham and his colleagues, they are: the “babylike” features of large eyes, a small nose, and a small chin; the “adultlike” features of prominent cheekbones and narrow cheeks; and the expressive features of high eyebrows, large pupils, and a large smile

What specific facial characteristics contribute to women’s judgments that certain male faces are attractive? According to the findings of Michael Cunningham and his colleagues, they are: the “babylike” feature of large eyes; the “adultlike” features of prominent cheekbones and a large chin; and the expressive feature of a big smile

The “golden ratio” facial proportions the “golden ratio” of 1 (width) to 1.618 (height) facial dimensions Original face De-idealized feature sizes 1 to 1:50, idealized feature sizes 1 to 1:618, idealized feature sizes

“Averaged” faces, with and without idealized feature sizes female and male “averaged” faces Averaged faces without and with idealized feature sizes

Beautiful people (or, at least, those who are perceived to be beautiful) get treated differently—and usually much better—than everyone else When the participants in one study were asked to rate the “adoptability” of the infants whose faces they saw in photographs, they rated the most attractive infants—and those with the largest eyes (score another point for Michael Cunningham)—as being the most “adoptable” ones. When students in grade school, middle school, and high score were asked to rate the popularity of their classmates, they rated their more attractive classmates as being more popular than their less attractive classmates. When 5th-grade teachers were asked to provide their “first impressions” of students based on each child’s school record and an accompanying photograph, they rated the more attractive students as being more intelligent, more popular, and likely to receive more years of education than the less attractive students. When researchers investigated the differences between the most and least active members of a commercial video-dating service, they found that the most active (i.e., the most frequently chosen) members were more attractive than the least active ones.

Beautiful people (or, at least, those who are perceived to be beautiful) get treated differently—and usually much better—than everyone else When researchers study hiring preferences in the workplace, they typically find that more attractive applicants are preferred over less attractive ones. Is this a form of job discrimination? You bet it is. Some people call it lookism. When researchers study differences in the salaries people get, they find additional—and similarly egregious—evidence of lookism. Attractive people take home an estimated 12-15% more in their paychecks than less attractive people do. Finally, although the American courtroom is supposed to be the one place where everyone is equal under the law, it appears that some people are more equal than others. When researchers study the sentences that juries recommend for actual or hypothetical crimes and misdemeanors, they find that attractive defendants are generally treated more leniently than unattractive defendants are.

Correlations of the outcome measure with: Results reported by Garcia, Stinson, Ickes, Bissonnette, & Briggs (1991)   Dyad-level outcome measures Correlations of the outcome measure with: Men’s attractiveness Women’s attractiveness Verbal behaviors Number of speaking turns (talking) Duration of speaking turns (talking) Number of questions asked Number of conversation sequences initiated % of third-person singular pronouns .28 .30 .10 .12 -.54 .53 .48 .40 .50 -.06 Nonverbal behaviors Duration of smiles/laughter Number of gazes Duration of gazes Number of mutual gazes .38 .32 .11 .25 .42 .36 .35 Ratings of the interaction Perceived quality of interaction Liking for the interaction partner .09 .41

Other findings based on the same dataset (Garcia et al., 1991) First, Stiles, Walz, Schroeder, and Williams (1996) found that the percentage of self-disclosing statements (and not just the total number of statements) was significantly correlated with the partner’s attractiveness. Second, because the data from our study were part of a larger data set in which we had also measured how accurately the dyad members could infer each other’s thoughts and feelings, we tested to see whether they really did “understand” attractive interaction partners better than less attractive ones. Interestingly, we found that they did: the more attractive their opposite-sex partners were, the greater were the participants’ empathic accuracy scores. Overall, then, the data from this study reflect a common underlying theme. When pairs of college-age men and women meet and interact for the first time in an unstructured situation, their partner’s physical attractiveness serves as a powerful motivator for them to try to get to know (and get close to) their attractive partner as quickly as possible. For the men, this effort is expressed in the form of taking an attractive female partner’s perspective during the conversation and re-starting the conversation whenever it appears to stall. For both the men and the women, it is expressed in the form of disclosing more to an attractive partner than to an unattractive one, and doing a better job of inferring an attractive partner’s thoughts and feelings.