Effects of Facial Skin Smoothness and Blemishes on Trait Impressions

Abstract

People make trait inferences based on facial appearance, and these inferences guide social approach and avoidance. Here, we investigate the effects of textural features on trait impressions from faces. In contrast to previous work, which exclusively manipulated skin smoothness, we manipulated smoothness and the presence of skin blemishes independently (Study 1) and orthogonally (Study 2). We hypothesized that people are particularly sensitive to skin blemishes because blemishes potentially indicate poor health and the presence of an infectious disease. We therefore predicted that the negative effect of blemished skin is stronger than the positive effect of smoothed skin. The results of both studies are in line with this reasoning. Across ratings of trustworthiness, competence, maturity, attractiveness, and health, the negative influence of skin blemishes was stronger and more consistent than the positive influence of skin smoothness (Study 1). Moreover, the presence of skin blemishes diminished the positive effect of skin smoothness on attractiveness ratings (Study 2). In sum, both facial skin blemishes and facial skin smoothness influence trait impression, but the negative effect of blemished skin is larger and more salient than the positive effect of smooth skin.

The effects of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness in online peer-to-peer markets

“…Given the importance of avoiding unhealthy individuals (Schaller & Duncan, 2007;Zebrowitz et al, 2003;Zebrowitz & Rhodes, 2004), we would therefore expect the negative effect of low attractiveness to be stronger than the positive effect of high attractiveness (cf. Jaeger, Wagemans, et al, 2018;Pazda et al, 2016).…”

“…Facial attractiveness is strongly correlated with perceptions of health (Jaeger, Wagemans, Evans, & van Beest, 2018;Pazda, Thorstenson, Elliot, & Perrett, 2016;Rhodes, 2006). Since people should be particularly motivated to avoid unhealthy (and therefore unattractive) individuals (Schaller & Duncan, 2007;Zebrowitz, Fellous, Mignault, & Andreoletti, 2003;Zebrowitz & Rhodes, 2004), this account would predict an ugliness penalty, but not necessarily a beauty premium.…”

Biological bases of beauty revisited: The effect of symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism on female facial attractiveness

“…The sexual dimorphism results indicated that while masculinity is clearly not preferred in female faces (d = 1.00), neither is increased femininity (d = .34). As the forced choice paradigm can only establish relative preferences, research teasing apart the direction of manipulation effects have often found that participants exhibit a relative preference for the unmanipulated stimuli to the 'decreased' version, rather than a preference for the 'increased' version [68,69,76]. That is, rather than preferring increased femininity in faces, participants dislike masculinity.…”

Biological Bases of Beauty Revisited: The Effect of Symmetry, Averageness, and Sexual Dimorphism on Female Facial Attractiveness

“…Indeed, between-face variability is a large source of variance when compared to manipulations [73][74][75]. Recent efforts have modelled this stimulus variation as a random effect using linear mixed models, finding modest effects of important factors like skin condition on attractiveness [76]. These approaches are capable of quantifying the variance that arises from faces and participants, which is necessary because some participants may give lower or higher average ratings irrespective of the faces they see.…”