Attractiveness Preferences

1. 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

2. 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

3. Origins of Attractiveness Preferences • Through extensive cultural input • Learning processes (operant conditioning, observational) • Preferences shouldn’t become apparent until age 3-5 years • “Eye of the beholder” theory • However, lack of empirical work

4. Empirical Methods • Comparison of historical evidence (e.g., painting, sculpture, written descriptions, etc.) • Cross cultural, longitudinal studies • Look for attractiveness preferences in young infants

5. Judith Langlois • Developmental psychologist • Social development, emphasis on origins of social stereotypes, particularly facial attractiveness • Currently at University of Texas, Austin

6. Why Start with Facial Attractiveness? • Infant visual system • Part of body most seen from early in life • In humans, primary means of individual identification • Facial expressions

7. Infants Learn about Faces Early • Infants prefer mother’s face to female stranger within 45 hours of birth (Field et al. 1984) • 12 to 36 hour old infants suck more to see video of their mothers’ faces as opposed to female stranger’s (Walton et al. 1992)

8. Development • 3 months • Discriminate familiar from unfamiliar faces • 6 months • Distinguish faces by age and sex • Preferences for happy over angry faces

9. Gaze Time • Show two paired side-by-side images • Record amount of time gazing at each image • More time assumed to indicate greater preference

10. Controls • Differences between faces other than attractiveness • E.g., hair colour, skin colour, hair style, age effects, sex, facial expression, etc. • Can be quite challenging

11. Langlois et al. (1987) • Undergraduates rated colour slides of adult Caucasian women • Selected 8 attractive and 8 unattractive faces • Paired images for gaze time testing • Within-trial (attractive paired with unattractive) • Across-trial (two similarly ranked faces)

12. Results • 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?

13. Langlois et al. (1991) • Faces rated for attractiveness by undergraduates • Adult Caucasian males, adult African-American females, infant faces • Six month old infants • Infants prefer to look at attractive over unattractive faces

14. Conclusions • Infant preferences established at very early age • Gender, ethnicity, age not relevant to preferences • Too young for socialization model to explain • Preferences too diverse for socialization model to explain

15. What is Beautiful is Good • Attractive people possess positive attributes (e.g., kindness, socially outgoing, etc.) • Unattractive people possess negative traits (e.g., mean, stupid, unpleasant, etc.) • Transferring from perceptual to behavioural • Common in adults (e.g., Dion, 1973) • What about infants?

16. Langlois et al. (1990) • 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

17. 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

18. 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 • Langlois lab

19. By “Average” We Mean… • Average faces not average in attractiveness • 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

20. 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

21. 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)

22. 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

23. 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)

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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)

27. 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

28. Stimuli • Five children’s faces • 18 months and 48 months • Normal • Morphed to represent 10% reduction in body weight

29. 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

30. EP Implications • Assessments of health and fitness made for infant and child faces • Positive correlation between facial attractiveness and health issues

31. 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

32. Female/Male Differences • Reproductive and rearing costs higher for females • Volk, et al. (2005) supports this • Females need to be more selective