Attractiveness judgements of individuals vary across emotional expression and movement conditions

Abstract

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the influence of emotional expression and dynamic information on attractiveness judgements of male and female targets. 56 undergraduate participants were presented with video and static stimuli in smiling and neutral conditions (40 targets, 160 stimuli). Our results indicate that smiling and movement influence attractiveness judgements differentially for male and female targets. Smiling increases the attractiveness ratings of female, but not male targets, whereas movement increases the attractiveness ratings of male, but not female targets. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, our findings demonstrate that the evaluative standards used by raters differ across presentation conditions. Although ratings of women's faces are positively related across movement and expression conditions, attractiveness ratings of smiling and neutral men's faces are correlated within movement conditions, but not across them. These findings highlight the importance of studying faces in motion to determine the factors influencing interpersonal attraction, and caution against the overgeneralization of results from research using static faces.

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