"The Face is More Important than the Body in Judgments of Physical Attractiveness"

[sergel02]

Not sure if this is the right section.

I found this while browsing tumblr. Its interesting, but i found it to be somewhat true with me i guess. I dunno, being on this site for years i always thought muscle was my biggest turn on, but i would probably take a good face over a good body. course having both is great Anyway, just thought it'd be interesting read.

Many have wondered whether it is more important to have an attractive face or an attractive body.

Although much research has been conducted to examine what makes faces and bodies appear attractive to the opposite sex, very little research has been conducted to examine which of these body parts is most important to one?s overall physical attractiveness.

This unanswered question lead Thomas E. Currie and Anthony C. Little to conduct a study using 127 men and 133 women.

Their study appeared in the scientific journal Evolution and Human Behavior in 2009.

The participants in Currie and Little?s study viewed and rated ten pictures of bodies of the opposite sex, then viewed and rated ten pictures of heads of the opposite sex, and finally viewed and rated ten pictures of both the body and head. For each participant, all of the ten pictures came from the same ten individuals, but the order in which they appeared was randomized for each viewing and rating session.

By comparing the ratings of the face and the ratings of the body to the ratings of the full picture, Currie and Little were able to discover whether the face or the body had a greater effect on the attractiveness of the model in the picture. .

In other words, if the rating of the face and the rating of the full picture were very similar, this would indicate that the face had a strong effect on the overall attractiveness of the picture. If, on the other hand, the rating of the face was very different from the rating of the full picture, this would indicate that the face had a weak effect.

?Ratings of facial attractiveness were a better predictor than ratings of bodily attractiveness of the rating given to images of the face and body combined,? as Currie and Little explain.

This finding was true of both male and female participants.

?This suggests that facial attractiveness is more important in people?s evaluation of overall physical attractiveness than body attractiveness and therefore implies that facial attractiveness is more important than body attractiveness in human mate choice decisions.?

Although this research helps answer the question of whether the face or the body is more important to overall physical attractiveness, Currie and Little note that further research is needed.

?By using photographs, only static physical traits are directly observable. In real life, pertinent information may also be conveyed by assessing the dynamic aspects of physical traits. For example, the way a person moves may convey information about his or her physical coordination, physical fitness, weight, or social dominance.?

Reference: Currie, T.E. & Little, A.C. (2009). The relative importance of the face and body in judgments of human physical attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol. 30: 409-416. (Source)

[Yachirobi]

That's true, but I'd argue that many an ugly man can be made attractive by having a hot body. It's all about the sum of one's part, not one individual feature. That's not just a physical thing. Guys with good personalities are pretty attractive, even if they're ugly. And having a great face and body can't even begin to make up for being a jerk.

[ytrewq]

It makes a sort of intuitive sense doesn't it? The face is really the most expressive and communicative part of the body. Keys to any relationship; romantic or otherwise. And consequentially it's what you'll be looking at most often.

[ydt81]

Thanks for the interesting article. For a long time, I've been wanting to have this conversation with people that actually share my physique preferences.

Personally, I would never say that 'overall the body is more important than the face' ....(at least not in so few words).
I totally agree with Yachirobi--there's very little that even a nice body AND face can do to cover up a rotten personality.

Strangely enough, I've found that I'm attracted to guys with at least some "ugly" on them......Okay, I'll admit that this mostly applies to buff guys with average/homely faces, but honestly, when it comes to buff guys I've always been more interested in the guy that looks like he lifted to 'better his chances' than I am to the perfect looking model. (haha I guess that definitely answers the body/face question for me)


I guess there's something interesting about compensation. Then again maybe it's just a defense tactic to shrink the size of my competition pool

Anyone else prefer the buff average joe to the CK model?

[raven79]

The quote 'ugly' and quote 'attractive' are a purely subjective way of seeing people. The truth is one person will see a guy as 'ugly' while another will see them as 'attractive' according to just their face.

An example of this assessment would be just a few days ago I was commenting on a video that Brian Irmiter made where he showed off his body for his fans and one guy commented that Brian should cover up his face so that he could just look at his body and not his face. I responded by saying that there was nothing wrong with Brian's face and the other guy got upset with me. Brian isn't handsome, but his body makes him look that much better. The rest of the body in my opinion can make your face more attractive especially if your body is really great. Brian's body is that good so he appears more attractive than if he wasn't buff.

[2bored]

Interesting study but flawed. To just be attracted to a face is as silly as being attracted to a toe nail. When someone sees the face they imagine it attached to a body. Handsome face, handsome body. Pictures with the head cut off are sorta creepy, as guys who browse gay personals websites and such can attest.

There might be an issue with the fact that the pictures were from the same people. People can identify and sympathize with a face, but not so much an arm. They recognize the face and carry over that rating to the whole body.

If a researcher could accurately quantify attractiveness across pictures, then pictures with similar attractiveness levels could be used. However, I'm not big on the idea of quantifying attractiveness at all. I think sexiness is an on or off kind of thing. The "he's a 10" talk undercuts the fact that the reaction to the sexiness is inevitably the same, if sexiness is found in the sex object, whether he is a 10, an 8, or a 7. Sexiness in a person ultimately can be defined only by the behavioral reaction it induces in other people. I think the butterflies in the stomach stuff is more caused by an awareness of sexiness capital that some people possess. This, I believe, is actually external to the individuals. It consists of what one individual fears the other individual might do. Ramble, ramble. I want to do my own study!

[nnnrg]

Researchers CAN quantify attractiveness.
There's (see note below) a "perfect face" that statistically hits all the attraction responses, independent of race and culture, and it's based on the golden rectangle.
Google has a lot of info about it here:
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...on+proportions

It was presented as a television special a few years ago.

Note: Stephen Marquand, the man who has been pushing this, has been criticised for some of his methodology, and there are complaints that he hasn't had anything peer reviewed.

[2bored]

I looked at one of the websites, nnnrg. I don't think this theory actually quantifies actractiveness, but just claims a response to some crypto-mythical proportion across a number of respondents. This, I suppose, measures across a group of people the prevalence of a positive reaction versus a negative reaction. It does not appear to me to measure the individual response to attractiveness, the "he's a 7" sort of talk. If we assert that person A is sexier than person B we invariably HAVE to talk about the response of people at large if we are going to be scientific about it. Survey time! This is the only yard stick available. So the psychologists end up measuring a subjective response across subjects. The relationship between a person's response to sexiness and the reality of the sexiness is not necessarily one of cause and effect. Thus, I'm skeptical of that yardstick all together.

Also, the golden rectangle theory fails because it assumes beauty is in everything. Patterns are easy to find if you look for them.

Regardless, I still think the body/face thing that the first study in this thread references is wrong. I posit that attractiveness is synergistic, but because people attach personalities to faces (do you know any guys with friendly biceps?), the strength of the viewer's connection to the personality, or rather personhood, apparent in the face overpowers the viewer's connection the personality or personhood of the body.

[ydt81]

Originally Posted by 2bored

Interesting study but flawed. To just be attracted to a face is as silly as being attracted to a toe nail. When someone sees the face they imagine it attached to a body. Handsome face, handsome body. Pictures with the head cut off are sorta creepy, as guys who browse gay personals websites and such can attest.

There might be an issue with the fact that the pictures were from the same people. People can identify and sympathize with a face, but not so much an arm. They recognize the face and carry over that rating to the whole body.

If a researcher could accurately quantify attractiveness across pictures, then pictures with similar attractiveness levels could be used. However, I'm not big on the idea of quantifying attractiveness at all. I think sexiness is an on or off kind of thing. The "he's a 10" talk undercuts the fact that the reaction to the sexiness is inevitably the same, if sexiness is found in the sex object, whether he is a 10, an 8, or a 7. Sexiness in a person ultimately can be defined only by the behavioral reaction it induces in other people. I think the butterflies in the stomach stuff is more caused by an awareness of sexiness capital that some people possess. This, I believe, is actually external to the individuals. It consists of what one individual fears the other individual might do. Ramble, ramble. I want to do my own study!

Very true. (Someone get this guy a grant!) Yeah I don't know much about constructing experiments well, but as a test subject for several Psych research projects, it's kinda disheartening how many flaws you can see in an experiment WHILE participating in it. For instance, while reading through the article I was wondering how many people on here from experience are able to match a face to a general body type. Unless they completely abstracted the faces--making the image even more bizarre--I can't picture myself NOT imagining the body attached to each head/neck.

[Rarity]

If a man had a face very similar to a rat, but the body of a god... I can assure you people won't deem him attractive. Unless, of course, he wore a very attractive paper bag over his head.