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Langlois, Ritter, Roggman, and Vaughn (1991)
Facial Diversity and Infant Preferences for Attractive Faces
Developmental ψ
Attractiveness Nature vs. Nurture
Pretty is as pretty does.
Beauty is only skin deep.
Never judge a book by its cover.
Attractiveness Nurture?
Are preferences for attractiveness culturally transmitted?• Lengthened necks• Bound feet• Painted skin• Dyed hair• Flattened or enlarged breasts• Fat• Thin
Attractiveness Nature?
“Beautiful faces and bodies worldwide are generally ones that look youthful, healthy, symmetrical, "average" in the sense that we prefer features– noses, legs, physiques– that are neither too large nor too small” David G. Myers in Psychology.
Attractiveness Nature
These images were created by morphing together the features of many women to come up with the "average" face.
Langlois et al.3 tests of attractiveness
White adults (male♂ & female♀)
Black female♀ adults
3-months old infants (♂ & ♀)
Previous study:
White female♀
Method
8 x 2 faces were projected on to a screen½ attractive – ½ unattractive (Likert scale)Child on parents´s lapParent wore occluded glasses. Light & buzz: 10s / trialNeutral expressions, clothing maskedControlled R/L presentationInfants given 5-10-min break after 8 trials
to lessen fatigue
Method
Operational definition of attractive: The slides’ faces were rated for attractiveness by at least 40 undergraduate men & women using a 5-point Likert-type scale (rating scale)
Final faces selected:• Facial expression, hair length, hair color were
equally distributed across attractiveness conditions • All male faces clean-shaven• Clothing cues masked • Faces were posed with neutral expressions
Maternal attractiveness was evaluated in studies 1 and 2. (Why not in study 3?)
Method
Standard visual preference techniqueInfant seated on parent's lap; parent wore
occluded glasses. Why?A light and a buzzing noise A trial began when the infant first looked at
one of the slides• When the infant looked at the center of the
screen, the next pair of slides was displayed.Each trial lasted for 10 s. Screen brightness consistent throughout
Method
Direction & duration of looks recorded on the keyboard of a laboratory computer that functioned as an event recorder
Using the televised image of the infant to observe visual fixation ensured that the experimenter could not see the displayed slides & was therefore blind to the attractiveness level of the slides the infant was observing
Reliability of the visual-fixation scoring obtained by having each experimenter score randomly selected videotaped sessions periodically throughout data collection
Study 1: Aim
To replicate their previous results with adult female facial stimuli
To extend the results to male facial stimuli
To investigate whether the manner in which male and female faces are presented influences infant preferences
Study 1: Method
Each infant saw color slides of 16 adult Caucasian women & 16 Caucasian adult men • Half of the slides of each sex depicted
attractive faces, the other half unattractive faces
Study 1: MethodThe stimuli were presented in two sets of 16
slides
• Each set divided into 8 trial blocks of 2 slides each
Control for infant side biases Slides paired so that infants viewed only pairs
of women or pairs of men
• Alternating condition, the infants observed alternating pairs of males and females.
• Grouped condition, infants saw all the women's slides together & all the men's slides together
Study 1: Method
Order of set presentation, order of slide pair presentation within sets (within the constraints of the set), & order of slide pairing randomized across subjects so that a particular slide of an attractive face could be paired with any slide of an unattractive face of the same sex
Study 1: Results
♂ face ♀ face
M SD M SD
♂ Infant 7.95 1.45 7.36 1.31
♀ Infant 7.69 1.35 7.81 1.33
• ♂ Infants look longer at ♂ faces p ˂ 0.01
• ♀ Infants look longer at ♀ faces p not significantly
M: Media - SD: Standard deviation
Study 1: Results
Infants looked longer at the attractive faces than the unattractive faces
Infant preferences for attractive faces were evident for both adult male & adult female faces
Condition of presentation was not significantBoys looked longer at male faces
• Girls also preferred same sex faces but the finding was not statistically significant
Mother’s attractiveness did not make a difference (Why do this?)
Study 2: Aim
To extend the findings to non-white faces• Infants were shown faces of Black adult
women. The faces were rated for attractiveness by both Black and Caucasian adult judges.
Study 2: Method
Sample• 40-6 month old infants (36 white)
Presentation• Black adult female faces
• Rest of procedure same as study 1
Study 2: Results
Infants looked longer at the attractive faces than the unattractive faces
Mother’s attractiveness did not make a difference
Study 3
Aim• To extend the findings to infant faces
Sample• 39-6 month old infants (36 white)
Presentation• 3 months old baby faces
• Rest of procedure as in study 1
Results – fixation times
High attractiveness Low attractiveness
M SD M SD
White ♂♀ Infants look longer at attractive faces p=0.03
Black ♀ Infants look longer at attractive faces p˂0.05
Babies ♂♀ Infants look longer at attractive faces p˂0.04
Explanation
“Ethnically diverse faces possess both distinct and similar, perhaps even universal, structural features.”
Beauty is (in some part) nature NOT nurture
Discussion
Beautiful faces are prototypical: an original form serving as a basis or standard for other forms
Why might prototypical faces be evolutionarily adaptive?• Individuals closer to the mean might be
less likely to have genetic mutations?
Averageness
An average face has mathematically average trait values for a population
Faces that are high in averageness are low in distinctiveness and are therefore prototypical
Several theorists have proposed that average traits reflect developmental stability
Evaluation
Infant preferences were Consistent, but… Only for unfamiliar faces… Why? Familiar caregivers: ↑attachment
Validity High experimental ☺ High or low external (ecological)? - all types of
faces? / too many white participants?
Evaluation
Visual preferences paradigm is comparative, not absolute
In other study (Langlois et al. 1987), however, 6-month old infants prefered attractive faces when presented alone
→ visual preference paradigm din´t biased the results
Vocabulary alert Cultural transmission Evolutionary preferences Statistical significance Likert-type scale Prototype External validity Experimental validity Attractiveness Nature Nurture Visual preferences