College Yearbook Research Articles

Belief in a just world and physical attractiveness stereotyping.

Just-world theory provides a possible explanation of physical attractiveness stereotyping, in that believing in a just world should lead to a positive bias toward winners, such as the physically attractive. Several hypotheses derived from this premise were tested by having adults complete the Just World Scale and rate the personality traits and expected life outcomes of an attractive or unattractive stimulus person. Predictions for the personality trait ratings were borne out for male but not for female stimulus persons: (a) Believers in a just world perceived the personalities of attractive, male stimulus persons as more socially desirable than nonbelievers and also attributed more socially desirable personalities to male stimulus persons who were attractive rather than unattractive; and Co) no effects were found for female stimulus persons. Predictions for the life-outcome ratings and differences in correlations between personality and life-outcome ratings as a function of belief in a just world were clearly supported. Implications for just-world theory, status-characteristics theory, and physical attractiveness stereotyping are discussed. Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) were among the first researchers to postulate and demonstrate a stereotype for physical attractiveness. They presented university students with college yearbook photographs of stimulus persons previously categorized by other judges as attractive, average looking, or unattractive. Each stimulus person was rated on a series of personality traits selected to provide an index of overall social desirability. The subjects also estimated the stimulus person's suitability for various roles (e.g., marital partner, parent, etc.) as well as his or her likelihood of finding success and happiness in different spheres of life.

Further Evidence on Components of Facial Attractiveness

Previous research has attempted to assess the relative influence of various facial components on over-all facial beauty by correlating attractiveness ratings of components with ratings of general attractiveness. Based on 45 females' self-ratings, Terry and Brady ( 1 ) reported that the mouth ( r = .54) was the most important determinant, followed by the eyes ( r = .51), hair ( r = .49), and nose ( r = .47). As self-ratings might be affected by each other, Terry and Davis ( 2 ) had 25 males and 25 females rate isolated components, created by dissecting photographs of other persons. An identical order of importance was obtained: mouth ( r = .53), eyes ( r = .44), hair ( T = .34), and nose ( r = .31). As a logical extension the present study had judges make ratings of intact photographs of other persons. Individually 25 male and 25 female Caucasian undergraduates were presented with a shuffled deck of black and white pictures from a college yearbook; 4 male and 10 female Caucasians were shown. The stimulus persons' eyes, noses, mouths, eyebrows, complexions, chins, hair, expressions, and over-all attractiveness were rated in this order on a 10-point scale of attractiveness (1, 2) . Inclusion of all of these facial components provided a context within which the ratings of mouth, eyes, hair, nose, and over-all could be made. Product-moment correlations between each judge's ratings of over-all attractiveness and the individual components were assumed to measure the influence the separate components had on the over-all ratings. The absolute values of these coefficients were transformed to zs, and an analysis of variance of sex of judge x facial component was computed. The only significant F ratio was for the main effect of component ( P = 4.22, d f = 7/336, p < .01). Averaging across all judges, the ratings of attractiveness of the components were correlated with over-all attractiveness as follows: eyes .68, nose .61, mouth .72, eyebrows .69, complexion .69, chin .64, and expression .76. It is not surprising that the most important component was expression. Not only does this involve additional components, particularly the eyes and mouth, which are related to over-all attractiveness but it also conveys affect. Although the coefficients are larger than have been reported previously, the order of importance of the mouth, eyes, hair, and nose in determining facial attractiveness remained constant. This order has emerged from selfratings ( I ) , from ratings of dissected photographs of other persons ( 2 ) , and now from ratings of intact photographs of others. The eye region has generally been assumed to be the most influential component of the face, and yet it has been consistently shown to be secondary to the oral region in determining over-all attractiveness. This discrepancy might be due to the real possibility that some of the judges wore eye correctives, which have been shown to be detrimental to self-ratings ( 4 ) and to ratings of others (3 ) . The eye region apparently is the most influential component when it is not modified by correctives ( 1 ) .

Lenoir Rhyne College Yearbook Dedicated to Librarians

Lenoir Rhyne College Yearbook Dedicated to Librarians

Michael Miley: Southern Artist in the Brown Decades

THOUGH wrote the gospel of St. Paul in this country, Herman Melville remarked bitterly after surveying American life in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, I would die in the gutter. This lonely, phantom-haunted novelist, frequently singled out for a case study of neglected genius in a materialistic generation, was by no means unique. Other artists in other fields and sections were no better received. Michael Miley, a Southern contemporary of Melville's, not only suffered a similar fate in his own day; his career and life, unlike Melville's, have had no adequate critical evaluation in later years. Melville's prediction that he would be remembered merely the man who lived with cannibals has been refuted. Michael Miley's prophecy that he would be referred to the Confederate soldier who photographed General Lee has not. Many titles have been suggested for the post-Civil War years in the United States: the Gilded Age, the Great Barbecue, the Tragic Era, the Dreadful Decade, the Pragmatic Acquiescence, the Brown Decades. All the terms indicate that there was as little sense of high idealism in the generation as there is sense of high tragedy in an undertaker. Irresponsible speculation, ruthless exploitation, incredible greed: these were trademarks of an age which forced Melville to an obscure post in the customs office, and Miley to routine college yearbook photographs in a Southern college town. Both lived in, and were ignored by, a society which Whitman aptly described as canker'd, crude, superstitious, and rotten. Yet Michael Miley is undoubtedly the most important nineteenth-

College and Reference Library Yearbook, No. 3

College and Reference Library Yearbook, No. 3