PSYC1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Facial Hair, Neoteny, Physical Attractiveness
12 Jun 2018
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Attraction:
Influences on human attraction
Triangular theory of love
INFLUENCES ON HUMAN ATTRACTION
Physical attractiveness
1.
Gatekeeper of interpersonal attraction
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Starting point --> getting past the physical attraction then other things come into play
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Participants told some information about themselves in regards to dating
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Judges rate the physical attractiveness of the people participating
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Men participating --> men's attractiveness was correlated with physical attractiveness
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Women participating --> attractiveness was correlated with physical attractive and sport activity
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Of all the correlations, those with physical attractive were highest (r = .80 - .88)
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Results
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Evidence of important of physical attraction from Speed Dating
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Attractiveness judgements are relative - vary across time and culture
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Non-symmetrical features can indicate "bad genes", odd genes or environmental stressors
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In both men and women, symmetrical faces are more attractive than asymmetrical faces
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Also, composite faces (use computer graphics to morph faces from a couple or a lot of faces) tend to be
more attractive than individual faces
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We want "averageness of faces because we want stability; don’t want unique faces
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Symmetry
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"Only universal beauty feature" (Hess, 1975)
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Pupils dilate when we are interested and contract when we are bored/disinterested
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Research: people are tend to be more attracted to people with dilated pupils
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What else makes pupils dilate?
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Sexual interest and arousal
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Low light --> we tend to another person more in low light not because of the romantic atmosphere but
because their pupils are dilated
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But threat also makes pupils dilated
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Pupil dilation
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Other signs of arousal e.g. red lips, flushed cheeks --> attractive because we want to be with someone
that is interested
"neotenous" (child-like) features (i.e. full lips, round mouth, big eyes) --> relatively young features
that suggest they are still at fertile age because of the tendency to reproduce
In women…
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Signs of maturity and dominance
Large jaw
Thin lips
Prominent brow
Facial hair --> optimal is just a few scrubs of facial hair but full beard exerts full dominance
Height (preference for men over 175cm) --> hormones because women want the best profile to
reproduce with
V shape torso
In men…
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Arousal
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However, some universal attractive features are such as:
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But what is attractive? One thing or a couple of things?
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Arousal
2.
Arousal can be interpreted as attraction, increased heart rate, physiological measures (not necessarily mean just
sexual tension)
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Schachter and Singer --> experience of emotion arises in part from our awareness of our body's arousal
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5B - Social Psychology
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
2:02 PM
PSYCH 1001 Page 1
