Attractiveness and evaluation practical.

ATTRACTIVENESS AND EVALUATION PRACTICAL

ABSTRACT

Many studies from the 1960s and 1970s found that having physical attractiveness also bestows upon you a positive halo effect. This study intends to discover if these stereotypes and schemas are still present in today’s society. There are two hypotheses. The first being that the more physically attractive a person is the higher the IQ for them will be predicted. The second hypothesis is that the more attractive they are physically the more friends they are predicted to have. The study went about testing the hypotheses by showing 10 black and white slides of people to 10 male and 10 female undergraduates. Then the participants were asked to rate the physical attractiveness of each photo, the IQ of the photo and the number of close friends they would predict the person in the photo had. Correlations were made to analyse the data. These found that there was a strong positive correlation between physical attractiveness and predictions of IQ. There was also a weak correlation between physical attractiveness and the predictions of close friends. This shows that even today in this modern society the halo effect still exists.

INTRODUCTION

Many studies from the 1960s and 1970s found that having physical attractiveness also bestows upon you a positive halo effect. This study intends to discover if these stereotypes and schemas are still present in today’s society. In the 1960s, one of the first studies was conducted in this research area by Walster et al. They conducted a field study in which participants were randomly paired with one another at a computer dance. It was found that regardless of the subjects own attractiveness, the most influential factor of how much his partner was liked, how much he wanted to date the partner again was mainly the physical attractiveness of his partner. Personality measures such as the MMPI, the Minnesota Counselling Inventory, and Berger’s scale of Self Acceptance and intellectual measures didn’t predict compatibility between the partners. So the only factor in determining his liking for his date was the dates physical attractiveness. They also found that the more physically attractive a person is the more popular they considered themselves to be. The correlation for physical attractiveness and popularity for men is .31 and for women is .46. But the problem with this study was that they assumed that they could use the ratings of physical attractiveness as a rough index of a persons social desirability. This study was conducted in a situation were single people were put together to find a partner not a friend. In this study there were sexual motives behind the choices made but in reality these sexual motives have little or no place when considering a friend.

Karen k. Dion (1972) found that the evidence she gathered showed that the affects of a physical attractiveness stereotype might be present at an early age. She also found that adults display differential treatment toward attractive and unattractive children in circumstances in which their behaviour is identical. In the study the child would do something wrong, and the adult would have to evaluate the child’s behaviour and administer a punishment fore the child. It was found that when an attractive child committed a transgression it was seen to be less because of its disposition toward antisocial behaviour, than if ...

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considered the relationship between physical attractiveness and peer relations in Korean kindergarten girls. Sixteen physically unattractive girls and 16 physically attractive girls were identified by 10 undergraduate students in visits to kindergarten classrooms recruited in Seoul, Korea. A pair of physically attractive and unattractive girls attended the same kindergarten classroom. Each child was videotaped for a total of 40 minutes during free play time. The frequencies of videotaped activities were coded into six behavior category using time sampling: (1) positive peer interactions, (2) solitary activities, (3) negative peer interactions, (4) ignored by peers, (5) hovering/unengaged, (6) miscellaneous. Attractive girls classified as liked more frequently than disliked. Physical attractiveness seems to affect children's peer relationships in the kindergarten setting. Once again we see that being physically attractive does make a person more socially desirable hence having more friends.

Karen Dion, Ellen Bercheid and Elaine Walster designed an experiment to determine whether physically attractive people are firstly assumed to have more socially desirable personality traits than people less physically attractive, and secondly if attractive people are expected to live better lives, like having much more successful careers or being better parents and partners than less attractive people. They found that attractive men and women were expected to attain more prestigious occupations than the less physically attractive. This goes some say to say that the IQ of these attractive is predicted to be higher if they assume they will have better jobs. The study also found that participants predicted that more attractive people will be much better partners and will have happier marriages than those who are less attractive. Attractive people in the study were predicted to have higher prospects for their social and professional lives. This study clearly showed that the stereotypes do exist.

, , and did a study of the effects of physical attractiveness on perceptions of academic success, achievement-related traits, IQ, initiative, and attributions of ability and effort in relation to academic success. The participants were 144 U.S. undergraduates who observed photographs of attractive and unattractive men and women and then rated the persons in the photographs on the traits mentioned. The study found that being seen as physically attractive created positive impressions of achievement-related traits for men but negative impressions for women.

All of the studies cited above indicated that the positive halo effect does exist. These are what have lead to the two hypotheses that the more physically attractive a person is considered to be the more intelligence they will be assumed to have and the more close friends the will be assumed to have.

METHOD

PARTICIPANTS

Ten male and ten female undergraduates were the participants. Their mean age was 19.62 years (s.d.= 1.94 years). The subjects were recruited randomly from first year university students.

MATERIALS

The only materials that are used are 10 black and white slides of single people. The slides were of 5 males and 5 females. The people in these slides were thought to represent a range of physical attractiveness.

DESIGN AND PROCEDURE

The procedure was explained to the participants.

A slide was shown and immediately after the participants were given time to give the physical attractiveness rating of the person in the slide from 0 to 10. Ten being very physically attractive and zero being not attractive at all. They then had to predict the IQ that they thought the person in the slide would have. They were informed that the mean IQ is 100 with a s.d of 15. Then the third part was to estimate the number of close friends the person in the slide probably has. This set of questions is asked 10 times, once for each slide. The same was asked of all the participants. All the participants were tested in a group not individually.

The independent variables are the people in the slides and their attractiveness. The dependent variables are the estimated IQ and the estimated number of close friends each person in the slide possesses.

RESULTS

The data was analysed by testing to see if there was any correlations between attractiveness and IQ and friendships. The data is put in rank of attractiveness then the Pearson’s correlation carried out.

Pearson’s correlation was carried out on the data and a strong positive relationship was found between the scores, r = + .94, N = 10, p< .01, indicating that the higher the perceived attractiveness of a person the higher their IQ is estimated to be.

The Pearson’s correlation also found a weak positive relationship between the scores, r = + .34, N = 10, p< 0.5, indicating that the higher the perceived attractiveness of a person the higher their number of friends is estimated to be.

DISCUSSION

The findings of this study were that there is definitely the stereotype that if a person is physically attractive then they are probably more likely to have a higher IQ than less attractive people. Also that the people do also believe that if a person is physically attractive they a re more likely to have more friends, but this a relatively weak relationship. These findings show that both hypotheses made are correct.

An explanation for these findings is that because a person is physically attractive then they will attract people that are interested in them in a sexual manner, therefore seeming more popular, and so when others see that a person is attractive to many they may feel that if they became friends with that person they will achieve a similar level of popularity even though they are not actually sexually attracted to the person.

Although the findings in this study seem to be quite clear, more research in the future should look at whether opinions of people do change of an attractive person after they have gotten to know the person. In Lisa Bazil’s study 175 fourth and fifth grade girls were randomly assigned to rate the attractiveness, intelligence, and popularity of either a physically attractive or unattractive girl shown in a videostill photograph. They also rated how much they would like the girl. They then viewed the same girl in a series of 10-videotaped vignettes, that showed the girl interacting with a peer in either a positive, negative or neutral manner. Initial ratings of the girls exposed important differences between the attractive and the unattractive girls. But later, behaviour was a strong moderating factor in peer judgments, specifically, positive behaviours, which considerably increased and negative behaviours considerably decreased ratings of attractiveness and other social judgments regardless of the physical attractiveness level of the girl, and eliminated differences in apparent attractiveness between the two girls.

In conclusion a lot more research does need to go into this area and the causes about why people have these stereotypes also need to be considered. But for now it is evident that even in todays society these stereotypes most definitely do exist. Which for some is a blessing and for others a curse.

REFERENCES

Walster, E., Aronson, V., Abraham., and Rottmann, L. (1966). Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 508-516.

Dion, K.K. (1972). Physical attractiveness and evaluations of children’s transgressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 207-213.

Dion, K.K., Berscheid, E. and Walster, E., (1972). What is beautiful is good.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285-290.

, (1996). The relationship between physical attractiveness and peer relations in Korean kindergarten girls. , Vol 56(11-A): 4330.

, , , (1998). Effects of attractiveness and gender on the perception of achievement-related variables. , Vol 138(4): 471-477.

(1999). The effects of social behavior on fourth- and fifth-grade girls' perceptions of physically attractive and unattractive peers. , Vol 59(8-B): 4533.