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 Nurture?

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

Laboratory experiment

IV? What was manipulated?

DV? What was measured?

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 White adults (male♂ & female♀)

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: Sample

60-6 month old infants• 53 of them were white

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 2Black adults female♀

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

3-months old infants (male♂ & female♀)

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

Study 3: Results

Infants looked longer at the attractive faces than the unattractive faces

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

Prototypes

Averaged faces become more attractive as more faces are added (Langlois & Roggman, 1990)

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

What do 100 people from London look like?

What does

the face of

7 billion

look like?