Langlois, J.H., Ritter, J.M., Roggman, L.A. and Vaughn, L.S. (1991)

Developmental Ψ

Facial diversity and infant preferences for attractive facesDevelopmental Psychology, 27(1), 79-84

Attractiveness

How & when do you know what ‘attractive’ is?

When we were infants, were our parents ‘more attractive’ than other adults?

What do you find attractive now? Why?

Attractiveness: nurture? Are preferences for attractiveness

culturally transmitted?

Is attractiveness learned by exposure to a society’s media?

Behaviour of young infants suggests that preferences exist earlier than

assumed

→ → Nice??

There are also, of course, individual preferences, but what about general ‘nature’ tendencies?

Attractiveness: nature?

Langlois et al.3 tests of attractiveness

White adultsa replication of an earlier study - why?

Black females

3-month old infants

Method

8x 2 faces were projected on to a screen Standard visual preference technique

Child on parent’s lap Parent wore occluded glasses. Why? Light & buzz, 10s / trial DV = ?

Study 1 – White adult ♀ & ♂

Sample 60 6-month old infants (53 white)

Presentation of faces ½ attractive, ½ unattractive (Likert scale) Neutral expressions, clothing masked Controlled R/L presentation

2 methods – alternating ♂♀ & grouped

Experimental validity→ control for confounding variables

Why do all these things?

For example…

Study 2 – Black adult ♀

Sample 40 6-month old infants (36 white)

Presentation Black adult ♀ faces Rest of procedure as in study 1

Study 3 – Baby ♀ & ♂

Sample 39 6-month old infants (36 white)

Presentation 3-month old baby faces Rest of procedure as in study 1

Results See p81

What do the numbers mean?M? SD?

Which faces were most attractive?

What might that be evidence for?

Results – fixation times p81

High attractiveness Low attractiveness

M SD M SD

♂♀ White

7.82 1.35 7.57 1.27

♀ Black 7.05 1.83 6.52 1.92

Babies 7.16 1.97 6.62 1.83

Infants look longer at att. faces p=0.03

Infants look longer at att. faces p<0.05

Infants look longer at att. faces p<0.04

Results (study 1) by gender p81

Male face Female face

M SD M SD

♂ Infant 7.95 1.45 7.36 1.31

♀ Infant 7.69 1.35 7.81 1.33

♂ Infants look longer at ♂ faces p<0.01♀ Infants look longer at ♀ faces p not sig.

Maternal attractiveness

Maternal attractiveness was evaluated in studies 1 and 2

Why do it? Why not in study 3?

Another experimental control Do infants with more attractive mothers

look at adult faces longer? No effect was found

Questions

What’s the headline result of Langlois et al. 1991?

Regardless of sex, age & race, infants treat attractive faces as distinctive i.e. infants behave differently towards

attractive faces vs. unattractive

Questions

What may explain these results (according to Langlois et al.)?

“Ethnically diverse faces possess both distinct and similar, perhaps even universal, structural features.” p83

Nature, not nurture

Questions

What makes faces attractive?

More prototypic?

Are prototypes actually evolutionary preferences? Individuals close to the mean are less

likely to carry genetic mutations???

Prototypes

Averaged faces become more attractive as more faces are added (Langlois & Roggman, 1990)

What do 100 people from London look like?

faceoftomorrow.com

Evaluation Infant preferences were

consistent, but… only for unfamiliar faces

Familiar caregivers, attachment↑

Validity: high experimental high or low external? – all types of faces /

too many white infant participants??

Evaluation Visual preference paradigm is

comparative, not absolute

In other work (Langlois et al. 1987), however, 6-month infants preferred att. faces when presented alone

→ → visual preference paradigm didn’t bias visual preference paradigm didn’t bias the resultsthe results

Summary

Beauty is Beauty is notnot in the eye of the in the eye of the beholderbeholder

Perceivers of any age from any culture can detect (and prefer) the ‘average’ for the population

Plenary

What have you learned from Langlois et al. (1991)?

H/W: create a core study summary

Terminology testing time (TTT)

Cultural transmission Evolutionary preferences Statistical significance Sample External validity Experimental validity Prototype p83

What does the face of 7 billion look like?