Roles of social knowledge and sexual dimorphism in the evaluation of facial attractiveness

This study involved two experiments to investigate the interaction between sexual dimorphism and social knowledge in relation to the evaluation of facial attractiveness. Experiment 1 examined the interaction between the valence of social knowledge and sexual dimorphism, and Experiment 2 examined the interaction between the content of social knowledge and sexual dimorphism. Results of Experiment 1 showed that irrespective of gender, positive social information significantly improved attractiveness ratings, while negative social information significantly reduced attractiveness ratings. Results of Experiment 2 showed that when combined with feminine features, warmth information significantly improved facial attractiveness judgments of both male and female faces. When combined with masculine features, on the other hand, for male faces, competence information could enhance facial attractiveness, while for female faces, warmth information improved facial attractiveness judgments. The above results showed that different dimensions of social information play different roles in the relationship between sexual dimorphism and facial attractiveness. This study deepens the discussion regarding the relationship between “physical beauty” and “moral worthiness”, suggests a dual path of top-down and bottom-up processing in the evaluation of facial attractiveness, and reminds governmental authorities that taking personal traits as the threshold to set up role models could avoid mislead...

Source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology - February 5, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research