Lecture 3

Question 1

Attractive or unattractive

Answer 1

• Participants take 30 milliseconds to judge facial attractiveness.
• Attractiveness is appraised unconsciously.
• Consequences of perceived attractiveness or unattractiveness are profound.

Question 2

Clifford & Walster (1972)

Consequences of unconscious attractiveness perception

Answer 2

• Participants judged children’s attractiveness and potential.
• Attractive children rated higher in intelligence, academic potential, and social potential.
• Attractiveness influences teachers’ expectations and child performance.

Question 3

Langlois et al. (1995)

Consequences of unconscious attractiveness perception

Answer 3

• Study on mothers’ treatment of babies based on attractiveness.
• Attractive babies receive more positive attention.
• Unattractive babies elicit negative affect in adults.

Question 4

Does appearance matter?

Answer 4

• Attractive people receive quicker help.
• Judges give lower sentences to attractive convicts.
• Strong attractiveness bias in hiring, higher earnings.
• Attractive people tend to be happier; others accept unfairness more.

Question 5

Why?

The ultimate explanation

Answer 5

• Attractiveness associated with health and fertility (evolutionary perspective).
• Perception of unattractive linked to similarity to unhealthy individuals.
• Actual evidence mixed; different indices of attractiveness correlated differently with health and fertility.

Question 6

Indices of attractiveness

Answer 6

• Symmetry, masculinity/femininity, waist-to-hip ratio (0.7) are attractiveness indices.
• These indices associated with health, fertility, and smarter offspring.
• Sexual dimorphic cues influence attractiveness.

Question 7

Why do sexual dimorphic cues affect attractiveness?

Answer 7

• Proximate cognitive explanation.
• Sexual dimorphic cues perceived as attractive due to ease of categorization.
• Cognitive process: We find things more beautiful when easier to categorize, including sexual dimorphic cues.

Question 8

Importance of attractiveness in partner choice?

Answer 8

• Matching phenomenon: Couples match along attractiveness.
• Evolutionary theories: Competing for best mates, matching maximizes reproduction.
• Attractiveness associated with own mate value.
• Attractive individuals prioritize attractiveness in partners; self-esteem influences self-perceived attractiveness.

Question 9

Do people know what they are looking for?

Answer 9

• Preferences don’t always match actual choices.
• Participants’ ideal traits differ from actual choices.
• Non-desirable traits reinterpreted positively after meeting.
• Overestimation of willingness to reject someone.

Question 10

Boundary to the matching hypothesis

Answer 10

• Level of acquaintance affects assortative mating for physical attractiveness.
• Not friends before dating results in higher attractiveness.
• Relationship science struggles to predict unique bidirectional attractiveness effects.

Question 11

Others factors in attraction

Answer 11

• Proximity, familiarity, misattribution of arousal, similarity, reciprocity.
• Birds of a feather flock together.
• Reciprocity strongly determines liking and attraction.
• Uncertainty leads to higher reported attraction.