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

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

Empirical Methods

• Comparison of historical evidence (e.g., painting, sculpture, written descriptions, etc.)

• Cross cultural, longitudinal studies

• Look for attractiveness preferences in young infants

Judith Langlois

• Developmental psychologist

• Social development, emphasis on origins of social stereotypes, particularly facial attractiveness

• Currently at University of Texas, Austin

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

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)

Development

• 3 months– Discriminate familiar from unfamiliar faces

• 6 months– Distinguish faces by age and sex– Preferences for happy over angry faces

Gaze Time

• Show two paired side-by-side images

• Record amount of time gazing at each image

• More time assumed to indicate greater preference

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

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)

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?

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

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

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?

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

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

• Langlois lab

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

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