Physical Attractiveness and Peer Perception Among Children

Dion, Karen K.; Berscheid, Ellen

doi:10.2307/2786463

Cited by 215 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Thus research on children's perceptions of adults is necessary in order to test for agerelated differences in perceptions of attractiveness. Research is also needed to examine school aged children because although research has been conducted with young and preschool aged children (see Dion, 1973;Dion & Berscheid, 1974;Langlois & Downs, 1979;Styczynski & Langlois, 1977) and adults (e.g., Berscheid, Dion, Walster, & Walster, 1971), few studies have been directed toward the elementary school years (for exceptions see Langlois & Stephan, 1977;Langlois & Styczynski, 1979).…”

Section: Variability In Stereotype Directionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Griffin¹,

Langlois²

2006

Social Cognition

208

163

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Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972), in their seminal article, labeled the attribution of positive characteristics to attractive people the "beauty-is-good" stereotype. The stereotyping literature since then provides extensive evidence for the differential judgment and treatment of attractive versus unattractive people, but does not indicate whether it is an advantage to be attractive or a disadvantage to be unattractive. Two studies investigated the direction of attractiveness stereotyping by comparing judgments of positive and negative attributes for medium vs. low and medium vs. high attractive faces. Taken together, results for adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2) suggest that most often, unattractiveness is a disadvantage, consistent with negativity bias (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001) but contrary to the "beauty-is-good" aphorism.

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Section: Variability In Stereotype Directionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Griffin¹,

Langlois²

2006

Social Cognition

208

163

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show abstract

“…Some theories, such as alliance models and assortative models (e.g., homophily theory, McPherson et al (2001)), predict that the network will be largely composed of pairs of mutual best friends, due to preferences for loyalty and exclusivity (in alliances) or preferences for similarity (in age, sex, geographic location, etc.). In contrast, other theories predict that the network should have many star structures, which contain multiple best-frienders organized around a central popular individual, due to preferences for specific traits such as intelligence, caring, or attractiveness (Dion and Berscheid, 1974;Langlois et al, 2000). A third possibility is that people do not view best friends as closer than other friends.…”

Section: Supporting Analysismentioning

confidence: 96%

Best Friends

DeScioli

Kurzban

Koch

et al. 2011

Perspect Psychol Sci

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Like many topics of psychological research, the explanation for friendship is at once apparently intuitive and yet simultaneously difficult to address empirically. The standard difficulties worsen when one seeks, as we do, to go beyond "obvious" explanations ("humans are social creatures") to ask deeper questions such as: what is the evolved function of human friendship? In recent years, however, a new window into human behavior has opened as a growing fraction of people's social activity has moved online, leaving a wealth of digital traces behind. One example is a feature of the MySpace social network that allows millions of users to rank their "Top Friends." Here we collect over 10 million people's friendship decisions from MySpace to test predictions made by hypotheses about human friendship. We find particular support for the alliance hypothesis, which holds that human friendship is caused by cognitive systems that function to create alliances for potential disputes. Because an ally's support can be undermined by a stronger outside relationship, the alliance model predicts that people will prefer partners who rank them above other friends. Consistent with the alliance model, we find that an individual's choice of best friend in MySpace is strongly predicted by how partners rank that individual.

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“…Numerous previous studies have demonstrated the importance of physical attractiveness in different social situations (Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rottmann, 1966;Dion & Berscheid, 1974;Adams & Huston, 1975). In their famous "computer dance" study, Walster et al (1966) found that the only predictor of interaction quality was the physical attractiveness of a person's date.…”

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Precedentsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Effects of physical attractiveness on relation initiation

LeBel¹

2017

Preprint

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This study examined the role of physical attractiveness in the initiation of interactions between unacquainted individuals. It is expected that in general, individuals (both males and females) will more likely initiate an interaction with an attractive versus unattractive other. However, it is anticipated that less attractive individuals will not show this preference and initiate an interaction equally among others varying in physical attractiveness. Finally, race differences may attenuate these predictions and quality of interaction will be higher in general with an attractive other. These data potentially have important ramifications for possible further applications. In a time where egalitarianism is promoted by many, it becomes important to educate the populace about our natural human biases. By applying the main findings of this study, individuals may be made more aware of these biases and hopefully be less bias in whom they interact with on a daily basis.

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Physical Attractiveness and Peer Perception Among Children

Cited by 215 publications

References 10 publications

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

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

Best Friends

Effects of physical attractiveness on relation initiation

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