Perceiving Age and Attractiveness in Facial Photographs¹

Abstract

In two experiments, 492 male and female subjects from three different age groups estimated the age of adult men and women on the basis of photographs and provided attractiveness ratings of the stimulus persons. With regard to the age estimates there was almost perfect agreement between the mean judgments of the different groups, and there was high consensus among the individual judges within each group. For each single picture, however, there was high variability in the age estimates; and although the estimates were generally quite accurate, in some cases they deviated substantially from the stimulus person's true age. In both experiments there was a negative relationship between age and attractiveness for female stimuli. For male stimuli a negative relationship was found in one experiment only, whereas in the other experiment these two variables were almost uncorrelated. Both experiments yielded two kinds of ingroup‐favoritism: The relationship between age and attractiveness was seen to be less negative (a) when the judges and the judged were of the same sex, and (b) when the subjects themselves belonged to the oldest age group.

Waist-to-hip ratio and preferences for body shape: A replication and extension

“…Henss (1995a, b) also noted this point in his study, and attributed it to an "attractiveness bonus" effect for young females. As this claim is supported by a large body of literature (Henss, 1991(Henss, , 1992, it is plausible in explaining the effect of stimulus sex on variance in ratings, but it cannot be denied that the poverty of the quality of male line drawings also affected participants' judgements. Henss noted that males with low WHR's were considered particularly unattractive.…”

Let me guess how old you are: Effects of age, gender, and facial expression on perceptions of age.

“…Dehon and Brédart (2001) found age estimates for male faces to be more precise than age estimates for female faces. Moreover, research on perceived attractiveness shows stronger negative correlations between perceived age and attractiveness for women than men (Henss, 1991). Thus, perceived age may be more important for women, and women may be willing to take more efforts to look younger.…”

“…Regarding group characteristics, the precision with which the age of a face is estimated seems to depend on the age of the depicted person. In particular, overestimating the age of young faces (i.e., estimating the face as older than the person's actual age) appears to be a common phenomenon (Henss, 1991;Sörqvist & Eriksson, 2007;Vestlund, Langeborg, Sörqvist, & Eriksson, 2009;Willner & Rowe, 2001). There is also some evidence that the age of older persons is more likely to be underestimated than that of younger persons (e.g., Henss, 1991;Vestlund et al, 2009).…”

“…In particular, overestimating the age of young faces (i.e., estimating the face as older than the person's actual age) appears to be a common phenomenon (Henss, 1991;Sörqvist & Eriksson, 2007;Vestlund, Langeborg, Sörqvist, & Eriksson, 2009;Willner & Rowe, 2001). There is also some evidence that the age of older persons is more likely to be underestimated than that of younger persons (e.g., Henss, 1991;Vestlund et al, 2009). Over and above these main effects, individuals seem to provide better age estimates of persons of their own age group as compared with other age groups (George & Hole, 1995;Klugman, 1947).…”

An Own-Age Bias in Young Adults' Facial Age Judgments

“…The majority of studies on adults' facial age judgments have focused on accuracy in judging facial age, which have shown that adults are generally accurate in judging the age of own-race faces (Burt & Perrett, 1995;George & Hole, 1995Henss, 1991). Other studies have also focused on the different facial cues that adults use to judge age, such as craniofacial shape, amount of cranial hair, presence or absence of wrinkles, appearance and height of internal facial features, and skin tone (Burt & Perrett, 1995;Fink, Grammer, & Matts, 2006;George & Hole, 1995, 1998Gross, 1997;Mark et al, 1980;Pittenger & Shaw, 1975;Wogalter & Hosie, 1991).…”