PSY 544 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Female Body Shape, Estrogen
• Me’s preferees for feale appearae
• Why is facial femininity attractive? One explanation could be that it's a default that our
visual system has to differentiate between female and male faces so we have a positive
response to faces that are stereotypically feminine
• But there is also some evidence that suggest: facial femininity correlates with levels of
oestrogen, and levels or oestrogen correlate with fertility
• So there's potential for evo argument that what men are looking here is are signs of
fertility
• Smith et al. (2006) – facial femininity judgments correlate with levels of oestrogen, r = .48.
• The researchers looked at the rate facial femininity of the faces and then saw if it predicts
oestrogen - they also reversed this procedure that is, in their sample of women, they
found that 10 women with the highest and 10 with lowest oestrogen levels, took their
images and blended their images - so blended the high ones together and the low ones
together - and created avg faces from them and asked people to rate them for
attractiveness and femininity and found that the image on the left was found to be more
attractive and feminine - so the relationship is going both ways - you can measure levels of
facial femininity and see that ir predicts oestrogen and you can measure the levels of
oestrogen, blend the faces together, and the results show more attractive towards the
face blended from images of women with high oestrogen - Levels of oestrogen are
predictive of conception success.
• Also, a composite of the faces of the 10 women with highest oestrogen was rated as
more attractive and feminine.
• Levels of oestrogen are predictive of conception success.
•
•
If we look at the same question across culture so we look at whether there are variations
in what men find attractive across culture
• Do physically-attractive facial features vary across culture?
• Cunningham et al. (1995):
• Asked White Americans, and international students (median = 4 months in U.S.)
fro a ariety of Asia ad Hispai ultures, ere sho oe’s faes fro a
variety of cultures (some Asian, some Hispanic, some European, and American). - so
the culture of perceiver and the person being perceived both have variations and
we're looking at whether people from one culture rate a completely different set of
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faces as attractive from people from another culture or is there a correlation b/w the
attractiveness rate given by people from culture vs another
• Lets look at ratings for Asian faces from Asian people and see if the faces that they
find attractive are also faces that people from other cultures find attractive
• Do physically-attractive facial features vary across culture?
• Cunningham et al. (1995)
• The faces were rated on an 8-point scale from very attractive to very unattractive.
• The ratings from all groups of raters were very strongly correlated, ranging from r =
.75 to .96!
• The correlations show that regardless of the culture someone is from they tend to
rate the same sorts of faces as attractive
• Predictors of attractiveness ratings in all faces were: when we look at the faces rated
as attractive by people from every culture, there was a consistence in features,
features that are related to facial femininity
o Big eyes
o Small noses
o Thin and narrow faces
o Cheekbone prominence
o Wider lips
• In this study though some participants were in the US as international students so
we can argue that they quickly came to understand the social norms of
attractiveness in the US. So in the second study they took the same faces and tested
people in Taiwan and saw exactly the same strong correlations
• There do seem to be some facial qualities that make them universally attractive
• Do physically-attractive facial features vary across culture?
• Langlois et al. (1987)
• Study shows that babies tend to look at faces of people that adults find attractive, more -
so even young babies pick up on who has an attractive face and who doesn't
• Showed 6- to 8-month-olds side-by-side pictures of women that adults had
previously rated as attractive (3.46 out of 5) or unattractive (1.44).
• You have to do two diff trails because you need to switch the sides the stimuli is presented
on - ex in the first trail you show images for 10 seconds and record which image the infant
stares at for longer and then you switch the order of presentation and see if the infant
looks at the sae fae for the sae aout of tie eause as ifats do’t hae great
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control of their neck their necks can plop to one side and then they'll start at every face on
that side
• They found not a large but a sig difference that the infants looked longer at faces that
adults rated as attractive vs faces the adults rated as unattractive - they also did trails
where
• Both faces were rated as attractive - the infants would look longer at the screen if there
were two attractive faces on it vs if there were 2 unattractive faces on it
• Infants showed slightly, but significantly, longer looking times to the attractive face
in each pair.
• On some trials two attractive faces were shown, on others, two unattractive faces
were shown.
• Infants looked at the former (7.33s) more than the latter (6.62s).
• Applied regardless of the attractiveness of mother. They also asked mother of the
infants photo to be taken and then rated for attractiveness - this should be a prb
because infants show a preference for their mothers faces very early on so it could
be that instead of attractive faces its about the face that looks most like mums - but
what they found was that all infants regardless of the attractiveness of the mother,
preferred the attractive face - meaning this really is pref for attractive faces and not
faces that look like mums
• Do physically-attractive features vary across culture?
• Langlois et al. (1987)
• Replicated the same effect with 2- to 3-month-olds in Study 2.
• Langlois et al. (1991) in follow up study they:
• Replicated the same effect with female and male faces.
• Replicated with faces of people who were Black, and with faces of babies. People
with different ethnicities and also with faces of babies
• However, the p-values for these were .05, .03, .05, and .03, respectively! and relatively
sketchy
• Me’s preferees for feale ody shape
• Swami et al. (2010) – 58 authors surveyed women (4,019) and men (3,415) from 26
countries. Assessing attractiveness of a variety of diff female body shapes to people from
a variety of countries
• Some from North America (e.g., U.S.), South America (e.g., Chile), Western Europe
(e.g., Germany), Eastern Europe (e.g., Croatia), Scandinavia (e.g., Sweden), Oceania
(e.g., Australia), Southeast Asia (e.g., Malaysia), East Asia (e.g., China), South and
West Asia (e.g., India), and Africa (e.g., South Africa).
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Document Summary
Levels of oestrogen are predictive of conception success. In this study though some participants were in the us as international students so we can argue that they quickly came to understand the social norms of attractiveness in the us. Infants showed slightly, but significantly, longer looking times to the attractive face in each pair: on some trials two attractive faces were shown, on others, two unattractive faces were shown. Infants looked at the former (7. 33s) more than the latter (6. 62s): applied regardless of the attractiveness of mother. Langlois et al. (1987: replicated the same effect with 2- to 3-month-olds in study 2. Langlois et al. (1991) in follow up study they: replicated the same effect with female and male faces, replicated with faces of people who were black, and with faces of babies. 1 = not at all, 5 = somewhat, 9 = extremely: me(cid:374)"s prefere(cid:374)(cid:272)es for fe(cid:373)ale (cid:271)ody shape.
