Abstract
Beauty and cuteness are considered to represent different aspects of attractiveness and to be distinguishable from each other by their respective reliance on neonate and sexually mature features found in attractive faces. In this study, we investigated whether baby schema features in adult faces affect not only cuteness, but also beauty and attractiveness. We also investigated possible differences among attractiveness, beauty, and cuteness, and possible effects of perceived youth on these judgments. Results showed that baby schema features affected judgments of attractiveness, beauty, and cuteness, but that perceived youth did not significantly influence these judgments. Furthermore, the effect of each facial feature differed across rating types with the participants’ naïve interpretation of rating categories. This suggests that beauty predominantly refers to sexual attraction, while attractiveness refers to a non-sexual attraction regardless of participants’ gender. However, gender differences may exist in judging cuteness. Therefore, expressions related to attractiveness may incorporate different elements and this distinction may not be fully shared across gender.
Highlights
Attractiveness provides observers with useful information for mate selection, and has various biological benefits. Rhodes (2006) postulated that attractiveness might be categorized into different types, such as sexual attractiveness and cuteness
Every judgment Rated scores ranged substantially from low to high ratings, which Attractiveness confirms that the facial stimuli in this study were appro- Beauty priate to investigate the relationship between facial fea- Cuteness tures and each judgment
Luo et al (2011) showed that facial likability and attractiveness were no longer affected by baby schema after 4.5 years of age, but the present study found that ratings of attractiveness, beauty, and cuteness were related to both baby schema features even for adult faces
Summary
Attractiveness provides observers with useful information for mate selection, and has various biological benefits. Rhodes (2006) postulated that attractiveness might be categorized into different types, such as sexual attractiveness and cuteness. Attractiveness provides observers with useful information for mate selection, and has various biological benefits. Rhodes (2006) postulated that attractiveness might be categorized into different types, such as sexual attractiveness and cuteness. The distinction between “beauty” and “cuteness” is typically clearly defined: beauty is considered to reflect averageness, symmetry, and sexual dimorphism (Rhodes 2006), while cuteness is considered to reflect baby schema (Alley 1981; Hildebrandt and Fitzgerald 1979). Beauty is related to sexual maturity (Rhodes 2006), while cuteness refers to the attractiveness of infants (Karraker and Stern 1990). If beauty and cuteness represent different concepts, the criteria of judging beauty and cuteness should be distinguishable from one another. It is assumed that neonate features are used for judging
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