The influence of skin tone, body weight, and hair colour on perceptions of women's attractiveness and health: A cross-cultural investigation

Swami, Viren; Rozmus-Wrzesinska, Malgorzata; Voracek, Martin; Haubner, Tanja; Danel, Dariusz; Pawłowski, Bogusław; Stanistreet, Debbi; Chaplin, Fiona; Chaudhri, Jahanara; Sheth, Pinal; Shostak, Alla; Zhang, Echo Xian; Furnham, Adrian

doi:10.1556/jep.6.2008.4.4

Cited by 25 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Moreover, Sorokowski (2008) showed that men judged images of women with (digitally-enhanced) blonde hair significantly younger than the same images with brown hair (particularly in women around the age of 30). This result is, however, in contrast to the findings of Swami and Furnham (2007), who reported that blondes were rated as less physically attractive and more promiscuous than brunettes, a result that was replicated in two follow-up studies by the same authors (Swami et al, 2008a,b). …”

Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 64%

“…We consider also this effect unlikely to be responsible for the observed pattern in our data, given the subtlety of ovulatory-cycle-dependent shifts in female preferences and the necessity of within-subject experimental designs to detect them (see for a meta-analysis Gildersleeve et al, 2014). Other studies have reported blondes to be rated as less attractive and more sexually promiscuous (Swami and Barrett, 2011), including cross-cultural data on higher attractiveness of brown hair than blonde hair (Swami et al, 2008b). Our data on women’s perceptions of hair confirm these findings, as across experiments darker shades (medium copper and brown hair) were considered as healthier and more attractive than blonde hair, independent from hair thickness, density and style.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age, Health and Attractiveness Perception of Virtual (Rendered) Human Hair

Fink

Hufschmidt

Hirn³

et al. 2016

Front. Psychol.

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The social significance of physical appearance and beauty has been documented in many studies. It is known that even subtle manipulations of facial morphology and skin condition can alter people’s perception of a person’s age, health and attractiveness. While the variation in facial morphology and skin condition cues has been studied quite extensively, comparably little is known on the effect of hair on social perception. This has been partly caused by the technical difficulty of creating appropriate stimuli for investigations of people’s response to systematic variation of certain hair characteristics, such as color and style, while keeping other features constant. Here, we present a modeling approach to the investigation of human hair perception using computer-generated, virtual (rendered) human hair. In three experiments, we manipulated hair diameter (Experiment 1), hair density (Experiment 2), and hair style (Experiment 3) of human (female) head hair and studied perceptions of age, health and attractiveness. Our results show that even subtle changes in these features have an impact on hair perception. We discuss our findings with reference to previous studies on condition-dependent quality cues in women that influence human social perception, thereby suggesting that hair is a salient feature of human physical appearance, which contributes to the perception of beauty.

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Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 64%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age, Health and Attractiveness Perception of Virtual (Rendered) Human Hair

Fink

Hufschmidt

Hirn³

et al. 2016

Front. Psychol.

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“…Validation tests of stimuli used in this study proved the accurate perception of body weight for silhouettes with the intended BMI of 15, 17, and 19, and therefore the preference for underweight women obtained did not result from a fault in stimuli production or biased perception. It is also unlikely that Poles would have a particularly strong preference for slim bodies because attractiveness assessments by Poles in a study that used female line drawings (Swami, Rozmus-Wrzesinska, et al 2008) were similar to participants from other countries. The incompatibility between the presently obtained preference for underweight women and the previously reported preference for women of normal weight may be due to methodological weaknesses in the previous studies.…”

Section: Preference For Bmimentioning

confidence: 99%

Attractiveness of women’s body: body mass index, waist–hip ratio, and their relative importance

Kościński

2013

Behavioral Ecology

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Body mass index and waist-hip ratio are related to human health and both play a role in mate choice. However, previous research is inconsistent as to what body mass index and waist-hip ratio values are preferred in women and what the relative importance of body mass index and waist-hip ratio for attractiveness is. Here, we made several methodological refinements to obtain reliable estimations. Participants (Poles) indicated the most attractive woman from a set of digitally manipulated high-quality silhouettes varying orthogonally in body mass index and waist-hip ratio and viewed from behind to exclude effects of the breast size. Then, each participant chose the more attractive silhouette from pairs in which one figure deviated from his/her ideal in body mass index and the other in waist-hip ratio. Both sexes preferred underweight women (body mass index = 17.3) with accentuated waist (waist-hip ratio = 0.66 for female and 0.70 for male judges). These represent preferences for unhealthy body mass and healthy body shape. Furthermore, body mass index proved twice as important for attractiveness as waist-hip ratio, even though literature data indicate that waist-hip ratio is at least as important for health as body mass index. We discuss the obtained pattern of preferences from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.

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“…These variables were selected primarily on the basis of their relative neglect within the literature on physical attractiveness, but also due to their phenotypic relation. To achieve this aim, we made use of line drawings of the female figure modified from those used by Swami et al (2007). It should be noted that studies of this kind have very rarely introduced colour to their stimuli, which makes this a novel application in itself.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of skin tone, hair length, and hair colour on ratings of women's physical attractiveness, health and fertility

Swami

Furnham

Joshi

2008

Scandinavian J Psychology

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The present study investigated the role of skin tone, hair colour and hair length in perceptions of women's physical attractiveness, health and fertility. One-hundred and thirty men and 112 women rated a series of 12 line drawings that varied in three levels of skin tone, two levels of hair colour and two levels of hair length. Results showed a number of interactions between the three variables, suggesting that these phenotypes are highly intercorrelated. However, there were also significant main effects of each of the variables, with hair colour generally explaining the greatest amount of variance. In general, light-toned figures were rated the most positively. Contrary to expectations, however, brunettes were rated more positively than blondes, and hair length had only a weak effect on ratings of attractiveness. Implications of these findings and the limitations of the use of line drawings are discussed in conclusion.

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The influence of skin tone, body weight, and hair colour on perceptions of women's attractiveness and health: A cross-cultural investigation

Cited by 25 publications

References 60 publications

Age, Health and Attractiveness Perception of Virtual (Rendered) Human Hair

Age, Health and Attractiveness Perception of Virtual (Rendered) Human Hair

Attractiveness of women’s body: body mass index, waist–hip ratio, and their relative importance

The influence of skin tone, hair length, and hair colour on ratings of women's physical attractiveness, health and fertility

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