THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF BODY AND FACE IN ATTRIBUTIONS OF PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS, AND SOCIAL AND RELATIONSHIP VARIABLES

Abstract

One hundred and fifty undergraduate students at a Southwestern university rated the attractiveness of the face, body and full, face and body of 5 male and 5 female stimuli. The subjects also rated the full, face and body stimuli on 6 social and relationship variables. These ratings were used to determine the relative influence of facial attractiveness versus body attractiveness on overall assessments of attractiveness and social and relationship variables. Both facial and body attractiveness were predictive of all the overall assessments, but face was a more powerful predictor. A second analysis related perceived similarity of attractiveness and liking. Perceived similarity of attractiveness was not a significant factor in how much the subjects indicated they liked the stimuli.