Lecture 3 Flashcards
1
Q
Attractive or unattractive
A
- Participants take 30 milliseconds to judge facial attractiveness.
- Attractiveness is appraised unconsciously.
- Consequences of perceived attractiveness or unattractiveness are profound.
2
Q
Clifford & Walster (1972)
Consequences of unconscious attractiveness perception
A
- Participants judged children’s attractiveness and potential.
- Attractive children rated higher in intelligence, academic potential, and social potential.
- Attractiveness influences teachers’ expectations and child performance.
3
Q
Langlois et al. (1995)
Consequences of unconscious attractiveness perception
A
- Study on mothers’ treatment of babies based on attractiveness.
- Attractive babies receive more positive attention.
- Unattractive babies elicit negative affect in adults.
4
Q
Does appearance matter?
A
- Attractive people receive quicker help.
- Judges give lower sentences to attractive convicts.
- Strong attractiveness bias in hiring, higher earnings.
- Attractive people tend to be happier; others accept unfairness more.
5
Q
Why?
The ultimate explanation
A
- Attractiveness associated with health and fertility (evolutionary perspective).
- Perception of unattractive linked to similarity to unhealthy individuals.
- Actual evidence mixed; different indices of attractiveness correlated differently with health and fertility.
6
Q
Indices of attractiveness
A
- Symmetry, masculinity/femininity, waist-to-hip ratio (0.7) are attractiveness indices.
- These indices associated with health, fertility, and smarter offspring.
- Sexual dimorphic cues influence attractiveness.
7
Q
Why do sexual dimorphic cues affect attractiveness?
A
- Proximate cognitive explanation.
- Sexual dimorphic cues perceived as attractive due to ease of categorization.
- Cognitive process: We find things more beautiful when easier to categorize, including sexual dimorphic cues.
8
Q
Importance of attractiveness in partner choice?
A
- Matching phenomenon: Couples match along attractiveness.
- Evolutionary theories: Competing for best mates, matching maximizes reproduction.
- Attractiveness associated with own mate value.
- Attractive individuals prioritize attractiveness in partners; self-esteem influences self-perceived attractiveness.
9
Q
Do people know what they are looking for?
A
- Preferences don’t always match actual choices.
- Participants’ ideal traits differ from actual choices.
- Non-desirable traits reinterpreted positively after meeting.
- Overestimation of willingness to reject someone.
10
Q
Boundary to the matching hypothesis
A
- Level of acquaintance affects assortative mating for physical attractiveness.
- Not friends before dating results in higher attractiveness.
- Relationship science struggles to predict unique bidirectional attractiveness effects.
11
Q
Others factors in attraction
A
- Proximity, familiarity, misattribution of arousal, similarity, reciprocity.
- Birds of a feather flock together.
- Reciprocity strongly determines liking and attraction.
- Uncertainty leads to higher reported attraction.
