Abstract
Facial makeup has been associated with ambiguous social perception. Although women wearing makeup were perceived as attractive and warm, other studies indicated that they were also be perceived as dominant and less trustworthy. Makeup has been described as a tactic to attract mates and compete with rivals, which indicates that it may be perceived as a sign of an intention to exert influence. The present studies examined 382 participants to investigate whether the presence or absence of makeup would affect the attribution to women of attractiveness and the tendency to exert influence tactics to get what they want. In the first experiment, with two within-subjects factors design: makeup (no makeup vs. light makeup vs. full makeup) x interpersonal influence tactic, women with light or full makeup were perceived as more likely to use dominant, calculating and cold influence tactics compared to women with no makeup. Higher attractiveness attributed to women led participants to attribute a higher likelihood of dominance tactic to women with light makeup, but also a higher likelihood of warm, ingratiating and gregarious tactics to women with light and full makeup. In the second experimental study, with one between-subjects factor: makeup and one within-subjects factor: influence tactics, the makeup effect was non-significant. Attractiveness attributed to women predicted attribution of higher willingness to use warm but submissive influence tactics to women in no makeup condition, both submissive and dominant warm tactics in light makeup condition, and lower willingness to use cold influence tactics in heavy makeup condition. The results showed that the makeup effect on attribution of influence tactics may be due to attractiveness attributed to women wearing makeup.
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The data and materials are available upon request from the corresponding author.
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The study code is available upon request from the corresponding author.
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This work was supported by the Student Grant granted to the first Author by the Student Government at the University of Silesia in Katowice.
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Conception and design of the study (ZS, MM); acquisition of data (ZS, MM); analysis and reporting of data (MM); drafting the manuscript (ZS, MM).
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Schneider, Z., Moroń, M. Facial makeup and perceived likelihood of influence tactics use among women: A role of attractiveness attributed to faces with and without makeup. Curr Psychol 42, 22564–22575 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03373-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03373-8