Lecture Notes: Factors Influencing Physical Attraction

Overview

• Examination of what defines physical attraction
• Discussion on cultural, historical, and universal traits of attraction

Universal Traits of Physical Attraction

• Youthfulness: Considered attractive globally
• Skin Clarity and Smoothness: Universally admired
• Body Symmetry: Attractive across ethnic and racial backgrounds

Gender-Specific Attractive Traits

• For Women:
  • Full breasts
  • Low waist-hip ratio
  • Facial traits: High forehead, small chin and nose, high cheekbones, full lips
• For Men:
  • Muscular chest
  • V-shaped torso (broad shoulders, narrow waist)
  • Facial traits: Strong chin, jaw, cheekbones, long lower face

Sexual Dimorphism

• Attraction to high levels of sexual dimorphism
• Males attracted to strong feminine traits, females attracted to strong masculine traits

Facial Attraction vs. Body Attraction

• Facial attraction deemed more important than body attraction

Concept of Averageness

• Averageness in Faces:
  • Faces closer to average perceived as more attractive
  • Study by Judy Langlois on "face morphs"
  • Example with digitized images of Caucasian female faces
  • Most respondents pick the highly averaged 32-face image as more attractive
• Stability of the Average Face:
  • Different sets of 32 face averages still produce highly similar results

Influences on Perceived Attractiveness

• Background Color:
  • Study where a woman’s photo with a red background was rated more attractive than with a white background
• Physiological Arousal:
  • Study on arousal effect: persons who cross a narrow bridge rate an individual as more attractive
  • Misattribution of arousal states, e.g., heart rate increase due to height also influencing attraction levels towards a person
• Environmental Influences:
  • Taking someone on a high-arousal date (e.g., amusement park) could increase their attraction due to misattributed arousal