1. Attraction and Relationships
Across all cultures, there is variation in how people view attraction and what makes a person attractive to someone else. Culture shapes our attitudes in terms of fashion and attractiveness.

2. Some Universals of Physical Attractiveness
Clear complexion
Bilateral symmetry
Average features

3. Clear Complexion People are attracted to healthy mates.
Skin signals health more directly than any other visible aspect.
The cosmetics industry provides people with ways to make their complexion look clearer.
People have strong aversive reactions to skin conditions.
This preference for clear skin complexion is more of an unconscious effort on our part – can be due to natural selection/sexual selection; though there is a positive correlation for clear skin and health.

4. Bilateral Symmetry Another marker of health is bilateral symmetry.
When an organism develops under ideal conditions it’s right and left sides will be symmetrical.
Genetic mutations, pathogens, or stressors in the womb can lead to asymmetrical development.
On average, asymmetrical faces are viewed as less attractive.
This is especially so in hunting-gathering societies where rates of infant mortality are higher.
On average, people that have higher proportion of body symmetry tend to be healthier. Also women seem to be more attracted to the scent of symmetrical men more so than unsymmetrical men, a study found.

5. Average Features
Faces with averagely proportioned features are more attractive than faces that deviate from average.
Average features are less likely to contain genetic abnormalities, and are more symmetrical.
Further, we can process any kind of stimulus that is closer to a prototype easier than one that is further from a prototype. Easy processing is associated with a pleasant feeling that gets interpreted as attractive.

6. Composite photos tend to be viewed as more attractive than approximately 95% of photos that make up the composite.
Composite photos of Caucasians, East Asians, and Eurasians (people with European and Asian parents) were created (Rhodes et al., 2005).
Further composites were made of the composites across races.
Participants then viewed these composite faces, and rated them for attractiveness.

9. People rated the mixed race composites and Eurasian composites to be most attractive.
Mixed race faces may be viewed as more attractive because they represent the average of all faces seen.
Whereas average facial features are perceived as attractive, when we consider people’s weight, height, muscles, breasts, and hips, often it’s bodies that depart from average that are seen as more attractive
The kinds of body weights that are perceived to be most attractive vary considerably across cultures.

10. In 1951, some anthropologists concluded, based on the evidence that they could find, that heavier women were universally found to be more attractive.
The data available at that time was largely consistent with this.

11. In many ways, body ideals for women in the West have become unusually thin.
They’ve become thinner over the past few decades, while average body weights have increased.

12. People care a lot about physical attractiveness - North Americans spend more money on beauty products than on education. But does it matter?
Much research, largely conducted with Westerners, finds that physically attractive people receive many other kinds of benefits. This is known as the “Tyranny of the Beautiful.”

13. Among Canadian government election candidates, physically attractive candidates received three times as many votes as unattractive ones.
People with MBAs were rated on a 5 point scale in terms of attractiveness. Each unit of attractiveness was associated with an additional $2600/yr salary for men, and $2150/yr for women.
Attractive defendants in misdemeanor cases are assigned less than half of the bail amounts as unattractive defendants.

14. One study investigated the role of physical attractiveness to life outcomes in the US and in Ghana (Anderson, Adams, & Plaut, 2008).
Participants indicated how satisfied they were with various life outcomes (e.g., their career, their abilities, their friendships, their romantic relationships).
The researchers took a photo of the participant, and this photo was rated for physical attractiveness.
Physical attractiveness ratings were used to predict participants’ life outcomes.

15. Correlation between Physical Attractiveness and Life Outcomes
Physically attractive Americans were more satisfied with their lives in general.
Physically attractive Ghanaians were not more satisfied with their lives.
Other research finds that the relation between attractiveness and well- being is stronger in urban America than it is in rural America.
The tyranny of the beautiful may not generalize well beyond Western cultural contexts.
Correlations with Attractiveness

16. Why might we see these cultural differences in the benefits of being physically attractive?
In some cultures (particularly Western ones), people have much freedom in deciding who they will have relationships with. They can associate with people who are not from their ingroups - they have high relational mobility.
In other cultures (more often non-Western ones) there is less freedom in deciding who are your relationships - they have low relational mobility. Significant relationships come from various in groups (e.g., family, neighborhood, school, club, office).
In high mobility contexts qualities that attract relationship partners are important. Physical attractiveness should be associated with better outcomes in these contexts.

17. Similarity is Attractive, Especially in High Relationally Mobile Contexts
Much research, largely conducted with Westerners, shows that people are attracted to those who are similar to themselves.
Perceived similarity is attractive in a wide variety of different domains, such as attitude, personality, demographics, and preferred activities.
This similarity-attraction effect may reveal the ultimate egotism - we’re most attracted to ourselves.

18. Research on the similarity-attraction effect in non-Western cultures reveals a weaker effect.
In one study, we asked Canadians and Japanese participants to evaluate a same-sex target that they very briefly met, before being taken to different rooms (Heine et al., 2009).
Participants completed a survey about their personality and/or demographic information. They then saw a survey which was apparently completed by the other participant. The other survey had been completed by the experimenter, such that the responses were either highly similar (80% similarity), or not very similar (20% similarity), with the responses of the participant’s.
Participants then evaluated how much they thought they would like the other participant.

19. Similarity-Attraction Effect
Canadians showed a standard similarity attraction effect - they liked the target more if they felt similar to them than if they did not.
Japanese, in this study, didn’t show a reliable similarity attraction effect.
In most other studies, the similarity- attraction effect is usually significant in other cultures too, however, it is consistently weaker in magnitude than that found with Westerners.
Liking for Other Participant

20. Two variables have been found which mediate this cultural difference in the similarity-attraction effect.
Ease at forming new relationships. People in high relational mobility contexts show a stronger similarity-attraction effect.
Self-esteem. The higher one’s self esteem, the more one likes people who are similar to them.

21. Relational mobility has also been studied by examining the number of times people have moved (see Oishi, Lun, & Sherman, 2006).
For Americans who have never moved, their identity is wrapped up in both their personality traits and the groups to which they belong.
For Americans who move more frequently, their personality is known by people in the new community, but some of their group memberships might not be.

22. Residential Mobility and Identity
Americans who have never moved view group membership to be almost as important as personality traits for their identity.
Those who move value personality traits more and group memberships less.
Importance to Identity
Number of Moves

23. More Residentially Unstable American Neighborhoods Have:
more “fair-weather” sports fans.
higher crime rates and lower pro-community action.
more national chain stores per capita, and more goods sold at those stores.
Ex. Starbucks is the same wherever you go, compared to if you live in a more stable area those quaint little speciality shops will probably not be present if you them move to a less unstable area.

24. Friendship What are the role of friends?
One thing that friends sometimes do is offer advice.
Giving advice benefits the recipient by providing new information, however the recipient might see it as a threat to their autonomy.
North American culture values autonomy, so unsolicited advice is often perceived negatively.
Russian culture is more collectivistic, so threats to autonomy are less of a concern. Advice is largely viewed as supporting relationships.

25. One study investigated advice-giving on American and Russian online parenting forums.
The researcher posted a question, describing a parenting challenge. In one condition the poster did not explicitly request advice. In the other condition, the poster directly asked for advice.
The researchers coded how many responses were received, and whether the responses made specific recommendations to the poster.

26. Percentage of Responses in Thread Providing Support
Advice Giving
Americans only offered advice if it was explicitly requested.
Russians offered more advice, regardless of whether it was requested. The Russian advice giving was not affected much by whether it was requested.
In interdependent contexts advice is given more, as the benefits of supporting others outweighs the perceived threats to autonomy.
Percentage of Responses in Thread Providing Support

27. Are Friendships Only Positive?
Beware of friends.
Some are snakes under grass;
Some are lions in sheep’s clothing;
Some are jealousies behind their facades of praises;
Some are just no good;
Interdependent and low relational mobility culture mean the same thing.
Poem is from Ghana, an interdependent culture.
Why should low relationally mobile people sometimes be suspicious of friends?

28. Kind of like many people’s relationships with their in-laws.
In low relational mobility contexts, you’re not in a position to really choose who all of your friends are - you have to deal with them regardless if you like them or not.
Kind of like many people’s relationships with their in-laws.
Friendship in many low mobility contexts, particularly Ghana, is a more ambivalent construct.
Ghanaians report having fewer friends than American, and feel that someone who has many friends is foolish.
Commitment obligations are quite high when if you were to have a lot of friends, and usually for people in low mobility places you’re pretty much stuck with the people you’re around. This is similar to the relationship you’d have with you’re partner’s parents/in-laws – this is not something you get to choose.

29. Ghanaians also report having more enemies than Americans (71% vs. 26%).
Many Westerners say they don’t have enemies because they avoid people that they don’t really like, so enemyships don’t develop.
This view seems naive to many Ghanaians, as they view enemyships as a natural state of life.
When Westerners acknowledge having enemyships they most often identify outgroup members.
For Ghanaians, enemyships are most often identified as ingroup members.

30. Romantic Love
Romantic love is an evolutionary adaptation to ensure that children had adequate resources and protection.
Romantic love exists everywhere - 89% of subsistence societies have shown clear support of it, and it’s likely that it exists in the remaining 11%.
However, the idea of marriages being based on romantic love is not universal. Arranged marriages have been common in many cultures.
Many organisms in the animal kingdom don’t seem to have romantic love although some do pair bond and stay together for life. Usually organisms come together to mate and further the species but that’s about it – after that the two probably will not stay together or encounter each other in the future.
Children are born into this world as being quite vulnerable, so having two parents provides more protection leads to increased survival of the child, and so romantic love may have been selected for due to survival of the children. However, nowadays single parents seem to do just fine.

31. Are Arranged Marriages Satisfying?
In arranged marriages, people tend to be excited about it and usually expect to fall in love with the person eventually so they usually have a good view and are open to this.
Arranged marriages may be puzzling to Westerners, but they are often quite successful.
Most arranged marriages end up becoming loving relationships, even if they start out without love.
Studies find that arranged marriages are at least as happy as love marriages (e.g., Turkish, Israeli, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese - although not by women in China and Japan).

32. Would any of you like to have an arranged marriage?
Differences in these slopes may be affected by at which point you and your partner experienced love at your peak. If there is little to no love in the beginning and end up having some love later in an arranged marriage = satisfaction because you started with nothing and end up with something. In love marriages, most couples experience their love peak around the time of marriage, and as time goes on romantic love may decrease = less satisfying because you started to high and have dropped so low.
Would any of you like to have an arranged marriage?