Factors affecting attraction: Physical attractiveness

What did Shacklefird and Larsen propose?

That certain facial features (e.g. symmetrical faces or strong jaws ) show genetic fitness or evolutionry advantages

And that neotenous features e.g. baby faces, big eyes and small noses are attractive because they trigger a protective and caring instict, as well as indicating youth

What did McNulty find about attractiveness?

That attractiveness is found to remain important throughout a relationship, even beyond marriage for several years

What are the 2 theories used to describe how physical attractiveness affects attraction?

The halo effect

The matching hypothesis

What does the halo effect suggest?

Disproportionate influence that there is a link between physical attractiveness and preconceived ideas about personality traits which are almost universally positive

Physically attractive people have positive characteristics which make them appear even more attractive so people behave more positively towards them, creating a SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

What did Dion argue about The halo effect?

That physical attractiveness brings about a stereotype of being kind, sociable and successful

Who introduced the matching hypothesis?

Walster

What does the matching hypothesis suggest?

That people choose romantic partners who are of roughly similar attractiveness (including physical, personality and intelligence) to themselves

So the individual must make a realistic judgement about their own value to a potential partner

Which leads to a compromise between the desire for most physically attractive partner and the avoidance of being rejected

Who created the 'computer dance' study originally?

Walster

Who replicated Walter's study?

Berscheid

What was the procedure of 'the computer dance' study?

Male and female students were invited to dance and were rated for physical attractiveness by observers, and completed a questionnaire about themselves

They were deceived -told that a computer would decide their partners for the night according to their answers to the questionnaire, but in reality they were just paired up randomly

What were the findings of the original 'computer dance study'?

The hypothesis was not supported

Students expressed higher appreciation of their partner if the partner was attractive, regardless of their own level of attractiveness

What did Berscheid find after the replication of 'the computer dance' study?

Because participants were able to choose their partner from people of varying degrees of attractiveness

They tended to choose partners who matched their level of attractiveness

What conclusions were drawn from the replicated study?

That we tend to seek partners whose attractiveness is similar to ours

So choice of partner is a compromise - we risk rejection if we select the most attractive person available

So we settle for those in 'our league'

Strength 1

Palmer and Peterson found that physically attractive people were rated as more politically knowledgeable and competent than unattractive people

Even when participants knew that these knowledgable people had no particular expertise

This supports the halo effect because it suggests there is a link between the preconceived idea that a person is knowledgable if they are physically attractive

This increases the internal validity of the theory, as it suggests it can be applied in political processes - suggesting there is a 'danger' that politicians are inaccurately judged only because they are physically attractive by voters

Strength 2

Cunningham, found that female features of large eyes, prominent cheekbones, small nose, were rated highly attractive by white (Hispanic and Asian males)

He concluded that what is considered attractive in society remained consistent amongst different cultures

This is because some of these features e.g. facial symmetry or large hips, are signs of fertility/ genetic fitness and are perceived similarly in different cultures (sexual selection) - so it makes sense to an evolutionary level

This support to the nature nurture debate shows that human behaviour is mainly a result of biological rather than environmental influences

Limitation 1

Taylor studied the activity logs of popular dating websites - it measured actual date choices and not just preferences

The researchers found that online daters mostly wanted to meet potential partners who were more physically attractive than them

This contradicts the matching hypothesis, and lowers its validity, as it suggests that most people actually want partners who are more attractive than them and not of similar attractiveness

However, the data was taken from the online dating app, so it could be that people were more 'blunt', and that results in person would be different

Limitation 2

Beta bias - the theory of matching hypothesis assumes that men and women are very similar in their views of how important physical attractiveness is

However, research done by Meltzer suggests that it isn't - he found that men rate their long-term relationships as more satisfying if their partner is physically attractive

Whereas for women - their partners attractiveness didn't significantly impact their levels of satisfaction within the relationship

This suggests that the matching hypothesis might be wrong in assuming that men and women consider physical attractiveness in the same ways, reducing the validity of the theory - suggesting that there are significant gender differences in how important appearance is for attraction

Limitation 3

The matching hypothesis is based on the nomothetic approach for studying human behaviour, as it tries o generate general laws applicable to all people

However, it has been seen through studies that there are significant individual differences in the importance of physical attractiveness to someone's partner choice

Suggesting that actually, maybe, more idiographic approaches e.g. studying individual cases to further detail, may be more appropriate for studying romantic relationships