Pretty Face Matters: Relative Importance of the Face and Body Attractiveness in China

Pei-Luen Patrick Rau,Yun Gong,Chunping Zhuang

doi:10.4236/psych.2016.77104

Abstract

This study gauges the relative importance of face and body attractiveness in terms of physical attractiveness in China. In the study of attitude, 653 participants were asked to prioritize face and body attractiveness in two mating contexts (short-term vs. long-term) via a survey. In the study of behavior, 232 participants were initially asked to remove either “face box” or “body box”, and were afterwards shown images of 10 individuals of opposite sex and rated face, body and combined attractiveness of each individual. The results indicate that Chinese, independent of gender, assign a higher priority to face attractiveness than to body attractiveness. Body attractiveness is of greater importance to females for rating male attractiveness than to males for rating female attractiveness. Mating context does not imply a significant effect on face-body priority. Chinese conservative attitudes towards sexual cues in body images and short-term relationship are discussed to explain the findings.

Highlights

Physical attractiveness influences many aspects of human social interaction
This study aimed to investigate the relative importance of face and body attractiveness among Chinese participants, considering the particularities of Chinese culture compared to western culture
A questionnaire was posted on several Bulletin Board Systems in China for heterosexual participants to rate the relative importance of face attractiveness and body attractiveness in both short-term relationship and long-term relationship on a five-point Likert scale (1—face most important, 5—body most important)

Summary

Introduction

Physical attractiveness influences many aspects of human social interaction. One can refer to “attractiveness halo effect” or “beauty is good stereotype” to see that people are in a preferential manner to mate with, date, associate with, employ, and even vote for physically attractive individuals. People tend to ascribe positive personality characteristics to physically attractive individuals (Dion et al, 1972; Udry & Eckland, 1984; Kalick et al, 1998). Both men and women rate physical attractiveness among the top criteria they desire in a potential partner (Geher & Kaufman, 2013).

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Conclusion