Sex-stereotyped traits, physical attractiveness, and interpersonal attraction.

Abstract

Two distinct categories of information operative in interpersonal situations are what a person “looks like” and what the person “acts like.” The former can be represented by degree of physical attractiveness. The latter can be summarized in terms of personality traits, classified according to the degree to which they are typically seen as masculine or feminine. The present research assessed the effects of simultaneously manipulating these two variables on different measures of heterosexual interpersonal attraction. The basic procedure involved college students' reading an elaborate context story from which ratings of hypothetical stimulus persons, in both “working partner” and “marital partner” contexts, emerged. The physical attractiveness of the hypothetical person was varied by means of facial photographs, and the person's trait description was manipulated for degree of sex-stereotype loading on the basis of “sex-stereotype index” values for adjectives. In both experiments subjects strongly preferred physically attractive stimulus persons. In a study in which subjects chose between two stimulus persons, interpersonal attraction was related to the sex-stereotype loading of personality traits, with subjects preferring stimulus persons described with traits drawn from the same-sex stereotype. In a second study in which subjects rated only one stimulus person, such an effect did not occur. In both studies feminine traits were more highly valued than masculine characteristics within the context of marriage.