PRESENTED BY: SAMANTHA CAPPUCCINO ALEXANDRA ADAMS WILLIAM SALLOOM The Effects of Personality Traits on Attractiveness Ratings

Background  Previous Research:  Lewandowski, Aron, & Gee, study (2007)

Abstract  Purpose: To see if there was any effect of personality information on perceived attractiveness.

Hypothesis  Primary : o Attractiveness ratings would be influenced by personality descriptions.  Secondary : o Positive descriptions would increase ratings and negative descriptions would decrease ratings.

33 CSUN students in Psy. 321 course (22 Females & 11 Males) Participants

Materials: 6-Point Likert Scale  Rated impression of overall: Intelligence Approachability Attractiveness Outgoingness Strongly Disagree Somewhat Disagree Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

Materials: Big Five Personality Descriptions Positive Description Example O – Is a deep thinker C – Tends to be organized E – Full of energy A – Is generally trusting N – Doesn’t worry too much Negative Description Example O - Is not a deep thinker C – Tends to be disorganized E – Low energy A – Is generally not trusting N – Worries a lot Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2009)

Materials: Sample Photos University of Aberdeen

Procedure  Three conditions o Control Group had no personality information o Positive Group read socially desirable traits o Negative Group read socially undesirable traits  Each group viewed the same 8 photos o 4 female and 4 male faces o Alternating female and male photos o Shown in same order

Procedure: Continued  Had 45 seconds per photo  Rated 4 attributes on 6-point Likert scale o Intelligence o Approachability o Attractiveness o Outgoingness

Results: Descriptive Statistics Mean and Standard Deviation Scores for Personality Descriptions Attribute Condition Positive Negative Control Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Intelligence 4.64 (.52) 2.99 (.94) 4.22 (.85) Approachable 4.71 (.56) 2.63 (.96) 4.46 (.87) Attractive 4.41 (.81) 3.69 (1.12) 4.57 (.94) Outgoing 4.38 (.41) 2.28 (.90) 4.16 (.65)

Overall Rating Results Mean Scores for Attribute Ratings

Results  A between-subject, one-way ANOVA was applied  Revealed no significant difference for overall attractiveness ratings o F (2,30) = 2.61, p >.05 o Female faces showed a significant difference, F (2,30) = 5.49, p <.05

 The remaining attributes were influenced o Intelligent F (2,30) = 12.29, p <.05 o Approachable F (2,30) = 20.85, p <.05 o Outgoing F (2,30) = 30.40, p <.05  Post hoc test results: o Negative group made a difference o No difference between positive and control groups Additional Results

Discussion  Results failed to support hypothesis o Ratings depending on gender o Previous research suggests personality does have an effect  Other attributes o Socially undesirable personalities carried more weight o Less intelligent, approachable, and outgoing

Implications  Gender difference o How we judge women may be different than how we judge men  Halo effect (Moore, Filippou, & Perrett, 2011) o Reverse effect  Personality linked to intelligence ( Reeve, Meyer, & Bonaccio, 2006)

Limitations  Uneven distribution of male and female participants  Averaged Faces were too similar and too attractive  Well-informed participants  Small sample size

Debruine, l. L. M., & Jones, B. (2007, January 17). Face research: Demo, make an average. Retrieved from Lewandowski, G. Jr., Aron, A., & Gee, J. (2007). Personality goes a long way: The malleability of opposite-sex physical attractiveness. Personal Relationships, 14, Moore, F. R., Filippou., D. D., & Perrett, D. I. (2011). Intelligence and attractiveness in the face: Beyond the attractiveness halo effect. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 9, Reeve, C. L., Meyer, R. D., & Bonacci, S. (2006). Intelligence-personality associations reconsidered: The importance of distinguishing between general and narrow dimensions of intelligence. Intelligence, 34, Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2009). Ten facet scales for the Big Five Inventory: Convergence with NEO PI-R facets, self-peer agreement, and discriminant validity. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, Reference

Thank You! Any Questions?