Attractiveness Preferences • Adults & children: – Prefer attractive over unattractive individuals – Use similar standards for attractiveness evaluation – Show cross-cultural similarities in attractiveness judgments • Numerous studies through 1970s and 1980s
Attractiveness Preferences. Adults & children: Prefer attractive over unattractive individuals Use similar standards for attractiveness evaluation Show cross-cultural similarities in attractiveness judgments Numerous studies through 1970s and 1980s. Historical Assumptions. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Attractiveness Preferences
• Adults & children: – Prefer attractive over unattractive individuals– Use similar standards for attractiveness
evaluation– Show cross-cultural similarities in
attractiveness judgments
• Numerous studies through 1970s and 1980s
Historical Assumptions
• Gradual learning through exposure to socialization agents (e.g., parents, peers) and media
• Standards of attractiveness vary across historic time, generations, and cultures
• 34 six to eight month old infants– 71% gazed longer at attractive faces– 62% spent less time looking at paired
unattractive than paired attractive faces
• 30 two-three month old infants– 63% gazed longer at attractive faces– No significant differences for across-trial test– Attentional processes? Focus on whatever seen
first?
Langlois et al. (1991)
• Faces rated for attractiveness by undergraduates
• Test that gaze time equates to beauty is good in adults
• Used 12 month olds• Infants interacted with female adult stranger
in attractive or unattractive lifelike latex mask
• Stranger followed “scripted behaviours”; rated as identical by observers for both conditions
Results• Strong social preference for “attractive” stranger• More positive affect towards “attractive” stranger• Similar findings where 12 month olds given two
dolls to play with; one with attractive, one with unattractive head
• Infants’ visual preferences for attractive faces functionally equivalent to social preferences for attractiveness in adults and older children
What Makes a Face Attractive?
• Langlois suggests averageness• Galton (1878) photo-averaged faces of criminals;
inadvertently found regression toward the mean• Langlois & Roggman (1990)
– Morphed up to 32 faces; 16 & 32 morphs most attractive
• Average in terms of the mean, or central, tendency of facial traits of the population
• Average faces are above average in attractiveness, in terms of how much infants, children, and adults like them, and in terms of how much people consider them good examples of a face
An Adaptationist Explanation
• Individuals showing population averages of traits likely free from aversive genetic conditions (e.g., mutations, deleterious recessives, etc.)
• Selection favours mate choice of individuals with average morphological traits
Infant and Child Facial Appearance
• Affects adult interactions and behaviour
• Unrelated adult females punished unattractive children more than attractive children
• Berkowitz & Frodi (1979), Dion (1972, 1974)
Child Physical Abnormalities
• Mothers treat these children differently
• Congenital facial anomalies; mothers less verbal and more controlling (Allen, et al. 1990)
• Cleft lip; mothers smiled at, spoke less, and imitated less (Field & Vega-Lahr 1984)
• Overall, less parental care for these children
Langlois, et al. (1995)
• What about attractiveness in normal populations of children?
• Infant attractiveness and maternal attitudes and behaviours
• 173 mothers and their infants
• Three ethnic groups (white, African American, Mexican American)
Method
• Observers coded frequency and duration of 63 maternal and 50 infant behaviours at newborn and 3 months
• Questionnaire assessing parenting attitudes and knowledge
• Colour photos of infants’ faces and mothers’ faces rated for attractiveness by adults
Findings
• Mothers of attractive newborns more affectionate, showed greater caregiving, and more attention to their infants
• Mothers of unattractive newborns more likely to say their infants interfered with their lives, but did not express attitudes of rejection to their infants
• Maternal attractiveness had no effect on results
Infant Phenotype and Health
• Low body weight (LBW)
• Health risks– Infant and child health problems: morbidity,
physical, neurological, behavioural deficiencies (Sweet et al. 2003)
• Parental care– Less affection, attention, general care (Mann
1992)
Volk et al. (2005)
• Do infant facial cues indicating LBW influence adults’ perceptions of infants and desire to give parental care?
• Hypothetical adoption paradigm
• Adults shown– Unaltered faces of infants and children– Faces digitally manipulated to simulate LBW
• Rate faces for cuteness, health, preference for adoption
Stimuli
• Five children’s faces– 18 months and 48 months– Normal– Morphed to represent 10% reduction in body
weight
Findings
• Normal faces rated as significantly cuter, healthier, and more likely to be adopted
• Adult women gave significantly higher ratings on all measures than men
EP Implications
• Assessments of health and fitness made for infant and child faces
• Positive correlation between facial attractiveness and health issues
Investment
• Gestation expensive
• Childrearing even more so
• Reluctance to expend energy on low-viable offspring
• Differential reproductive success and selfish gene theory
• Put energy into best offspring
Female/Male Differences
• Reproductive and rearing costs higher for females
• Volk, et al. (2005) supports this– Females need to be more selective