Effects of Physical Attractiveness on Evaluation of Vocal Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether physical attractiveness of singers would affect judges' ratings of their vocal performances. Fourteen singers (6 female, 8 male) were videotaped. They and their performances were rated by 82 musicians, who were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The visual group rated singers on physical attractiveness only; they viewed the videotape with the sound turned off. The audiovisual group subjects rated musical performance from the videotape. Subjects in the audio group rated musical performance from an audiotape dubbed from the videotape. On the basis of visual group ratings, male and female singers were each divided into more-attractive and less-attractive groups. Four-way mixed-design analyses of variance (treatments by sex of rater by sex of singer by singer attractiveness) subsequently were calculated for each of the seven rating categories on the rating forms. Results revealed in every category a significant treatment by sex of singer by attractiveness interaction. For male singers only, there was no difference in performance ratings between more-attractive and less-attractive singers when rated by audiotape; but audiovisual ratings significantly favored the more attractive singers over the less attractive singers. Results for female singers were confounded by the audio-alone ratings, which favored the more-attractive singers over the less-attractive singers. Other results showed that, for both male and female singers, male raters were more severe than were female raters; that audiovisual ratings were higher than were audio-alone ratings; and that ratings of undergraduate majors versus graduate students and faculty members combined were not differently affected by singers' attractiveness.