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Physical Attractiveness Stereotype

“What does s/he look like?” is often the first question asked about a potential blind date. “S/he has a good personality …” is the dreaded reply, although most deny the importance of attractiveness in our relationships. When do people start to care about attractiveness? Is it when they start seeking potential romantic partners? Research shows, perhaps surprisingly, that attractiveness is influential even in infancy. Infants, children, and adults are more likely to choose attractive than unattractive individuals as social partners and to judge and treat them positively. Most people, even young children, associate positive traits and behaviors with attractive individuals and negative traits and behaviors with unattractive individuals. This entry describes attractiveness preferences and their role in social interaction and interpersonal relationships. Additionally, a discussion of theoretical perspectives is presented.

Preferences, Judgment, and Treatment

Despite common wisdom that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, assessments of facial attractiveness are consistent both within and across cultures. In a review of hundreds of studies, Judith Langlois and colleagues found robust evidence for preferences for attractive compared with unattractive people even among the well acquainted. Even young infants agree with adults about attractiveness and show similar preferences for attractive faces.

Infants

Infants as young as 3 months of age look longer at faces rated by adults as attractive than unattractive regardless of age or race of the faces. By 6 months of age, infants categorize faces based on attractiveness, that is, they perceive attractive and unattractive faces as two distinct types of faces. Categorization into different groups is thought by many social and cognitive psychologists to be a necessary prerequisite before positive and negative traits can become linked to the groups (stereotyping). By 12 months of age, infants associate positive information with attractive faces and negative information with unattractive faces. These early associations may explain why infants treat adult strangers differently depending on the stranger's attractiveness: Infants approach and smile more at attractive strangers, but they avoid and show anxiety toward unattractive strangers.

Not only do infants respond differently to attractive and unattractive people, but they also are treated differently based on their own attractiveness. Adults agree about which infants are attractive and unattractive—not all babies are cute! Adults believe that attractive infants will become more competent, likable, smarter, and less problematic for their parents than unattractive infants. Premature infants perceived as attractive by nurses thrive and leave the hospital earlier than premature infants perceived as unattractive, possibly because attractive infants receive better care and more attention than unattractive infants. Most important, mothers treat their own infants differently: Mothers of attractive infants behave more positively and focus more attention on their infants than mothers of unattractive infants. Thus, physical attractiveness is important and has mental and physical health consequences even in the earliest social interactions.

Children

Further confirmation of the influence of facial attractiveness on interpersonal relationships comes from research studying children's preferences, judgment, and treatment of peers varying in attractiveness. Karen Dion and others showed that children agreed about who was and was not attractive and were more likely to choose attractive peers as potential friends. When asked to choose which of two children pictured had a positive or negative attribute, children ranging in age from 3 to 6.5 years old chose attractive children for positive traits and unattractive children for negative traits. They judged unfamiliar attractive children as more likable and expected attractive children to behave in a positive, prosocial manner. Children also made similar judgments about their own classmates, with attractive children considered more likable and more prosocial than unattractive children.

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