When Boy Meets Girl: Attractiveness and the Five-Factor Model in Opposite-Sex Interactions

Abstract

Fifty-one previously unacquainted opposite-sex dyads were surreptitiously videotaped while participating in an initial six-min interaction. Participants subsequently described their feelings about the interaction and their partner. Observers later viewed the interactions and evaluated their quality. We examined the ability of participants' physical attractiveness and scores on dimensions of the “big five” model of personality to predict the quality of their interactions. Women's physical attractiveness—but not their personality scores—predicted their own, their partner's, and observers' evaluations of interaction quality, with more attractive women experiencing better quality interactions than less attractive women. Conversely, men's personality scores—extraversion, in particular—predicted their own and observers' ratings of the quality of their interactions, with more extraverted men experiencing better quality interactions than less extraverted men. Men's physical attractiveness was unrelated to any measure of interaction quality. Similarity in dyad members' attractiveness was also unrelated to evaluations of their interactions. The data are interpreted within evolutionary accounts of sex differences in attractiveness preferences.