Factors affecting attraction- Attractiveness

Attraction

• We are more attracted to people who are physically good looking

• Evolutionary explanation is the physical indications of health, facial symmetry and recourses indicate good genes, we want the best genes possible for our offspring

What is the Halo effect?

• People with the physical characteristic of physical attractiveness are also assumed to be as successful in other areas of life e.g: intelligent, hardworking, sociable

• This can result in others interacting more positively towards them, resulting in them becoming more successful

Key ideas on physical attractiveness

• Neotenous (baby-like) features in females (e.g. small nose, big eyes) are also rated as attractive

• Perhaps because they trigger a caring instinct

• Good for females who want to reproduced

• Attractiveness is important at the start of a relationship

• Shackelford and Larson(1997)- symmetrical faces are considered attractive by many people- evolutionary approach

What is the matching hypothesis?

• We cannot all mate with the most attractive members of our population

• We realistically appraise our own attractiveness in relation to others

• We look for romantic partners who are at a similar level of attractiveness

• We avoid the pain of rejection by not chasing partners we see as too attractive

• We retain our partners by not choosing someone who will leave us for someone else

Research on physical attractiveness and the matching hypothesis

• Mustein (1972) matching photographs

• Used photographs of 197 couples (engaged or dating)

• Photos of each partner alone were used so each person could be judged individally

• Eight judges rated the individual photographs according to attractiveness

• Found photographs of couples were consistently given a similar attractiveness rating compared to randomly matched pairs

• This supports the matching hypothesis individuals

• Supported by Feingold (1988) who conducted a meta analysis including 18 studies and 164 couples- found an overall positive correlation in attractiveness ratings of couples

Limitations

• Some people do not seem to attach much importance to physical attractiveness

• Standards of attractiveness vary across cultures and times- socially constructed and not necessarily universal- reduces generalisabilty

• Attraction has limited explanatory power- predicts initial attraction but doesn’t determine long term

• Reductionist- ignores other factors such as nurture

Strengths

• Evolutionary explanation- signals health and fertility

• Suggests preferences for attractiveness are biologically adaptive and support a nature based explanation