Effects of physical attractiveness, attitude similarity, and sex on various aspects of interpersonal attraction.

Abstract

Male and female subjects' attraction to opposite-sex others of either high, medium, or low physical attractiveness and of either similar, moderately similar, or dissimilar attitudes was measured in terms of subjects' liking for other, of his or her preference for other as a co-worker, and of the probability that he or she would consider other as a dating or marriage partner. The major results indicated that subjects' attraction was greater to physically attractive rather than unattractive and to similar rather than dissimilar others. Similarity had a greater effect for females than males on liking and working, while physical attractiveness had a greater effect for males than females on working, dating, and marrying. Comparisons among the dependent variables revealed that physical attractiveness had a greater effect on dating than on liking or marrying for male and female subjects, although the difference was greater for males. Selfrating of attractiveness was found to be related to date selection. Relative to subjects who rated themselves as attractive, unattractive subjects were more likely to consider unattractive others and less likely to consider attractive others as a date.Since being attractive to and attracted by members of the opposite sex are important aspects of our social life, everyday psychology is rich in notions about the important determinants of opposite-sex attraction. One of the well-accepted beliefs on this issue, often deplored by females, is that males are mainly attracted by physical appearance. Females, on the other hand, though they too are attracted by "good looks," are believed to place more importance on less "skin-deep" qualities.To investigate this notion we had male and female subjects indicate their attraction to opposite-sex others who were of either high, medium, or low physical attractiveness and were in their attitudes either similar or dissimilar to the subjects. Ratings of subjects' liking for other, of his or her preference for other as a co-worker, and of the probability that he or she would consider other as a dating or marriage partner were used as dependent measures of attraction. Rephrasing the above commonsense notion in terms of our design, we hypothesized a Sex X Physical 1 Requests for reprints should be sent to Vaida Thompson, Attractiveness interaction, a Sex X Attitude Similarity interaction, and possibly even a Sex X Physical Attractiveness X Similarity interaction.The few studies which have investigated the effects of physical attractiveness and similarity on opposite-sex attraction tend to show only some of the predicted sex differences. In a study which manipulated attitude similarity and physical attractiveness of same-and opposite-sex others, Byrne, London, and Reeves (1968) found that while similarity had a greater effect on females than on males, there was no sex difference in the effects of physical attractiveness. Their failure to find a sex difference in the effects of physical attractiveness may have been due to a failure to create enough difference b...

Meeting Your Match: How Attractiveness Similarity Affects Approach Behavior in Mixed-Sex Dyads

“…We found one other study, by Stroebe, Insko, Thompson, and Layton (1971) that fits the pattern. However, this applies only to the analysis in which they compared participants with different levels of self-rated attractiveness and not with independently judged attractiveness.…”

Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping: Is Beauty Good or is Ugly Bad?

“…For example, previous research has focused on judgments of full body photos and attitude similarity of opposite-sex targets (Mashman, 1978), effects of race, physical attractiveness, and dialect (DeMeis & Turner, 1978), perceptions of women's first names and physical attractiveness (Hassebrauck, 1988), and judgments of arousal and dating/marriage desirability for full length photos and images of individual body parts (e.g., eyes, chest) of opposite-sex targets (Istvan, Griffitt & Weidner, 1983). Furthermore, most of the studies that included medium attractive faces as stimuli fail to report mean ratings (Hassebrauck, 1988;Istvan, et al;Stroebe, Insko, Thompson, & Layton, 1971) and are limited to investigations of judgments in the social domain. Taken together, these limitations necessitate research to address the question of the direction of stereotypes based on attractiveness: Is beauty good or is ugliness bad?…”

The Role of Perceived Similarity in Supportive Responses to Victims of Negative Life Events

“…In general, the similarity/attraction effect is pervasive and has been found across a variety of populations ranging from school children (Tan & Singh, 1995) to married couples (Russell & Wells, 1991), as well as for different types of information such as personality characteristics (Klohnen & Luo, 2003), attitudes (Byrne & Clore, 1970), and physical attractiveness (Byrne, London & Reeves, 1968;Stevens, Owens, & Schaefer, 1990;Stroebe, Insko, Thompson & Layton, 1971). Thus by emphasizing one's similarity to others, whether in attitudes, personality, or other characteristics, a victim may be able to initiate interactions with others that maximize the likelihood of supportive responses (such as listening, empathizing etc.).…”