Beauty and Attractiveness

1
Beauty and Attractiveness

• Overview of The Day
• What influences how we perceive human beauty and
  attractiveness?
• Honest signals, handicaps, and asymmetry
• Facial beauty--theories and controversies
• Height-to-Head Ratio

2
Approaches to thinking about attractiveness and
beauty

• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
• Idiosyncratic. What is one persons passion is
  anthers poison
• Beauty is culturally determined
• Standards of beauty are arbitrarily defined by
  cultural standards
• Beauty is based on evolved psychological
  mechanisms
• All people perceive the same beauty-cues because
  they are signals of health, fertility and/or good
  genes

3
What makes someone attractive?

• How important is physical appearance?
• What are important aspects of physical
  appearance?
• How important is health, robustness, vigor? Why?
• How important is socio-psychological similarity
  (religion, background, interests)? Why?
• How important is kindness? Why?
• How important is being conscientious
  responsible?
• How important is intelligence? Why?
• How important are wealth and status (potential or
  current)?

4
Attractiveness Issues in Stories of Betrayed
Love

• Passages regarding what Analia thought Luis
  Torres might look like, his appearance
• Intimacy that developed with the letters
• Luis Torres character
• Would she have fallen in love with the crippled
  school teacher when she was a young women?
• Because she was independent and wealthy, did that
  affect her perception of what would make a
  desirable mate? That she already had a child?
• Will she and the school teacher get married and
  have children?
• How realistic is this story about attractiveness?

5
Honest Advertisements of Mate Quality

• Honest advertisements
• Traits that distinguish one same-sex organism
  from another, that honestly advertise good
  genes and cannot be feigned (or are difficult to
  feign).
• Handicaps
• Asymmetry

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Handicaps

• Handicaps are biologically costly traits--they
  require significant energy to produce and
  maintain and may reduce pathogen resistance
• In human males large body size and musculature
• In females breast size

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Handicaps are related to

• Biological robustness
• Pathogen resistance
• Sex hormone levels
• Same-sex competition (for access to members of
  the opposite sex)

8
Fluctuating Asymmetry (FA)

• Morphological traits for which the signed
  differences have a mean of about zero
• foot, ankle, hand, wrist, elbow, ear width, ear
  and pinky length
• Asymmetry results from developmental instability
  (environmental stress, primarily from pathogens,
  during development)
• Symmetry (lack of FA) signals robustness,
  resistance to parasites and other pathogens

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FA is related to

• IQ (low FA related to slightly higher IQs)
• In men, body mass, physicality, social dominance,
  and metabolic rate
• In women, breast asymmetry is related to number
  of offspring, having children later in life,
  marital status ear symmetry is related to
  left-side infant cradling
• Not related to facial attractiveness

10
Mannings Theory of Breast Size and Symmetry

• Size
• Breast size is influenced by fat levels and
  estrogen
• Estrogen and other sex steroids have been
  implicated in immunosuppression (suppresses
  immune system)
• Less-robust individuals cannot afford large
  quantities of immunosuppressants (e.g., estrogen)

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Mannings Theory of Breast Size and Symmetry

• Symmetry
• Rapid breast growth during puberty can generate
  asymmetry
• More robust individuals will be able to maintain
  symmetry during puberty
• Breast size and symmetry are honest signals

12
FA and Sexual Behavior

• Experiment with barn swallows (tail symmetry)
• Men with low FA have more sexual partners, more
  extra-pair sex, are chosen more often by women in
  extra-pair affairs
• Not found with women
• Women are more likely to have orgasms with low FA
  men

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Question for women?

• If you want to be happy for the rest of your
  life, better make an asymmetric man your husband.
• Less likely to fool around
• Less attractive to other women
• More likely to invest in you and your children

14
Controversies

• Kalick, et al. study
• correlated ratings of photos (facial) with health
  data.
• Facial attractiveness was unrelated to health
• Is this evidence debunking the FA theory?

15
What Makes a Face Beautiful?

• Averageness of features
• Symmetry of features
• Uniqueness of features
• Feminine qualities
• fuller lips, larger eyes, shorter length, and
  rounder jaw

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Some Theories about Facial Attractiveness

• Average features
• desirable in women because easier to identify
  paternity
• Unique features
• desirable in men because easier to identify
  paternity
• Feminine features
• desirable in women--signals high estrogen and
  fertility
• desirable in men--signals a more investing man

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Height-to-Head RatioAnother Honest Signal?

• Average H-t-H ratio is about 6.5 to 7.0
• NBA stars, 8.6 Top female models, 8.0
• Propaganda art
• favorable, 10.0 unfavorable, 5.5
• Reasons why H-t-H ratio is a marker
• honest signal of genotype
• height and status
• height and maturity

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Summary

• What influences how we perceive human beauty and
  attractiveness?
• Honest signals, handicaps, and asymmetry
• Facial beauty--theories and controversies
• Height-to-Head Ratio