About this video
This video looks at what makes people physically attractive. Some traits, such as youthful skin, symmetry, and averageness, are found attractive across many cultures, while others are attractive for men or for women. It also shows that context can change attraction, from background colour to the arousal of walking across a narrow bridge.
You'll be able to
- name traits the video describes as attractive across cultures.
- explain why an averaged face can look more attractive.
- explain misattribution of arousal using the bridge study.
Key words
- averageness
- How close a face is to the typical, prototype face made by averaging many faces.
- sexual dimorphism
- The degree of difference between male and female anatomical traits.
- face morph
- A digitally blended face made by averaging several faces together.
- misattribution of arousal
- Mistaking the physical signs of arousal from one source for attraction to someone else.
- sympathetic arousal
- The body's fast heartbeat and sweating response, such as on a high bridge.
Transcript
- [Voiceover] When trying to figure out what attracts us to other people, an obvious thing to think about is physical attraction. But what is it? What do we mean when we say that someone is physically attractive? And relatedly, are the same things attractive to all people?
Well, it turns out that there are cultural and historical differences in terms of what is found to be attractive. There are some things that are considered to be universally attractive. Things like youthfulness and skin clarity, and skin smoothness, and also body symmetry are considered to be attractive across ethnic and racial backgrounds.
But there are also a number of traits that are considered to be universally attractive for just men or for just women. For women, things like full breasts and a low waist-hip ratio are always considered to be attractive. For men, having a muscular chest and a v-shaped torso, so having really broad shoulders and a narrow waist, is also considered to be attractive.
One really interesting thing that we've learned from attractiveness research though is that facial attraction is more important than body attraction. And when we look at male and female faces, we can also see a number of universally attractive traits. For women, things like a high forehead, small chin and nose, high cheekbones, and full lips are considered to be attractive.
For men, prominent facial features are found to be the most attractive. So things like having a strong chin and jaw and cheekbones, but also having a long lower face. And it turns out that women are typically attracted to men with these strong masculine characteristics.
And men are typically attracted to women with strong female characteristics. Another way to say this would be that both males and females tend to be attracted to high levels of sexual dimorphism, or the degree of difference between male and female and anatomical traits.
Another thing that is thought to be universally attractive is averageness. And for me, this kind of goes against the assumption that I had that unique traits would be considered to be the most attractive. But it turns out that that's incorrect, and I think that is beautifully illustrated in these figures that were created by Judy Langlois.
And one thing that she studies is attractiveness as it relates to averageness. And the way that she does this is by studying what she refers to as "face morphs." So what you're seeing here in this top figure are pictures of Caucasian female faces that have been digitized and then averaged.
So in this figure two separate Caucasian female faces have been overlayed and their features morphed together. This one includes 4 Faces, 8 Faces, 16 Faces and 32 Faces. And I want you to take a moment yourself to look at these five images and to pick out which one you consider to be most attractive.
It turns out that most respondents pick the 32 Face Average as being the most attractive in the set. And this seems to imply that the closer someone's face is to the average face, the more attractive we would perceive them to be. And at this point, you might be thinking, "No, I don't think that that's true "because what the average face looks like "is completely dependent on which faces you average."
And in response to that, I have this bottom figure. And what you're seeing here is the result of the same face morphing technology that we saw in the top figure. In this case, 32 faces have been averaged to create one single image. But the 32 faces that were averaged in this face are completely different than the 32 faces that went into this face.
So each of these fives faces include the faces of 32 individual women with no overlap. And one thing that you might notice right away is that they are all incredibly similar. And if you stare at them for a little bit, if you really concentrate on them, the differences between them will start popping out.
But overall, these faces are incredibly similar to each other. And so when we say that the closer a woman's face is to the average or prototypical face, the more attractive they are, there does actually seem to be a fairly stable prototype that we're comparing these faces to.
But even while things like facial averageness and facial symmetry are considered to be universally attractive, what we consider to be attractive can also be influenced by the weirdest things. In one study on attractiveness, researchers took a photo of a woman and either gave that photo a white background or a red background.
Researchers would then show an individual simply one of these photos, and then ask them to rate how attractive they thought they were. And once again, take a moment to think about this yourself. Cover up one of the photos with your hands and rate it, and then cover up the other one and rate it.
And obviously, you already know that there might be a difference here because I'm presenting it to you in this video. But just sort of take a moment to look at it yourself and see if your judgements of this woman are the same. Because oddly enough, the woman on the red background was deemed to be more attractive and more sexually desirable than the woman on the white background, despite the fact that it was the same woman on both photographs.
We also know that attractiveness can be mediated by unrelated physiological arousal. And what do I mean by that? Well, imagine a study in which a researcher shows an individual a picture and asks them to rate the woman in the picture. And maybe they rate them, I don't know, a seven out of ten.
And then they approach another person and ask them the same question. But this person, instead of having just walked down the street, has actually just walked across a long and very narrow bridge. And remember this new individual is being shown the exact same photograph that the other individual was shown.
How attractive do you think he will think this woman is? Do you think it's going to be the same as the person walking down the street? Do you think it's going to be less attractive or do you think it's going to be more attractive? Well, it turns out that the individuals who just walked across the narrow bridge rated that individual to be significantly more attractive than the people who are just walking down the street.
And why do you think that is? Well, it turns out that walking across a narrow bridge over a high height increases sympathetic arousal. And you may have felt this yourself if you've ever stood on a high height and looked over the edge. And your heart starts to beat fast, and your hands start to sweat, which, as it turns out, is exactly the same thing as what happens when you're in the presence of someone who you're really attracted to.
So our guy, he steps off the bridge, his heart is beating fast, and then he's shown this picture of this attractive woman. And on some unconscious level, he winds up misattributing that fast heartbeat to the attractive woman. Because, as it turns out, we can be really terrible at identifying the source of physiological arousal.
And so, because his heart is beating fast while looking at this picture of a woman, our individual's brain has taken that physiological and visual feedback, and matched them together. Which leaves our individual to come to the conclusion that this woman is incredibly attractive.
And that's why if you want someone to feel attracted to you, it might be a good idea to take them on a date to an amusement park.
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