Skip to main content

Facial Attractiveness

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Face preferences; Facial aesthetics; Facial beauty

Definition

Attractive faces are faces that are liked and preferred over less attractive faces. Attractiveness is often measured using rating scales in which faces are rated on a scale of attractiveness (e.g., 1 = low attractiveness and 7 = high attractiveness) or using two alternative forced choice decisions (e.g., which face is more attractive face A or face B?). Facial attractiveness concerns the traits that make individual faces more or less attractive as well as the mechanisms via which facial attractiveness is appraised.

Introduction

Our physical appearance is the first thing that people can observe about us and the human face is one of our most prominent physical features. People are very interested in the faces of other people and consequently faces dominate our art and media. The reason for this interest is that our faces play an especially important role in our social lives. Faces are the focus of our attention...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • DeBruine, L. M., Jones, B. C., Crawford, J. R., Welling, L. L. M., & Little, A. C. (2010). The health of a nation predicts their mate preferences: Cross-cultural variation in women’s preferences for masculinized male faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 277(1692), 2405–2410.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Grammer, K., & Thornhill, R. (1994). Human (Homo sapiens) facial attractiveness and sexual selection: The role of symmetry and averageness. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108, 233–242. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.108.3.233.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Langlois, J. H., Kalakanis, L., Rubenstein, A. J., Larson, A., Hallamm, M., & Smoot, M. (2000). Maxims or myths of beauty? A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 390–423.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Little, A. C., Jones, B. C., Penton-Voak, I. S., Burt, D. M., & Perrett, D. I. (2002). Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 269, 1095–1100. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.1984.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Little, A. C., Apicella, C. L., & Marlowe, F. W. (2007). Preferences for symmetry in human faces in two cultures: Data from the UK and the Hadza, an isolated group of hunter-gatherers. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 274(1629), 3113–3117.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Little, A. C., Jones, B. C., & DeBruine, L. M. (2011). Facial attractiveness: Evolutionary based research. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B: Biological Sciences, 366(1571), 1638–1659. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0404.

    Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Penton-Voak, I. S., Jacobson, A., & Trivers, R. (2004). Populational differences in attractiveness judgements of male and female faces: Comparing British and Jamaican samples. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25(6), 355–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perrett, D. I., Lee, K. J., Penton-Voak, I. S., Rowland, D. R., Yoshikawa, S., Burt, D. M., …., & Akamatsu, S. (1998). Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness. Nature, 394, 884–887. https://doi.org/10.1038/29772.

  • Samuels, C. A., Butterworth, G., Roberts, T., Graupner, L., & Hoyle, G. (1994). Facial aesthetics: Babies prefer attractiveness to symmetry. Perception, 23, 823–831.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Symons, D. (1987). An Evolutionary approach: Can Darwin’s view of life shed light on human sexuality? In J. H. G. W. T. O’Donohoe (Ed.), Theories of human sexuality (pp. 91–126). New York: Plomin Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anthony C Little .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Little, A.C. (2021). Facial Attractiveness. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_1881

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics