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Abstract

In many physical attractiveness studies, it is clothing and other appearance vari ables that are manipulated, not actual physical beauty, in order to vary physical attractiveness. Thus, results that have been attributed to physical attractiveness may actually be due to clothing attractiveness. The purpose of this research was to determine whether people perceive others differentially as a function of the attractiveness of their clothing. Slides of six different models in business attire, three wearing attractive clothing and three wearing unattractive clothing, served as stimuli. Fifty-nine participants listened to a pre-recorded audio tape consisting of 30 suggestions relative to marketing a perfume. As a comment was heard, a slide of the woman purported to have made the comment was projected. Sub jects rated the women on competence, work comfort, and sociability. Multivari ate and univariate analyses of variance revealed that, as expected, models dressed in attractive clothing were perceived more positively than models dressed in unattractive clothing on each of the three dependent variables. These results provide some support for a clothing attractiveness stereotype that may function analogously to the well-documented physical attractiveness stereotype. It is known that physical attractiveness, a variable over which one has little control, exerts a potent influence in social situations. These results imply that clothing attractiveness, a variable over which one has potential control, might exert a similar influence.
... Fashion is an effective means of enhancing one's physical attractiveness [Lennon 2009]. However, for those who are not familiar with fashion, it can be challenging to choose the outfits that suit them well. ...
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Fashion aesthetic evaluation is the task of estimating how well the outfits worn by individuals in images suit them. In this work, we examine the zero-shot performance of GPT-4V on this task for the first time. We show that its predictions align fairly well with human judgments on our datasets, and also find that it struggles with ranking outfits in similar colors. The code is available at https://github.com/st-tech/gpt4v-fashion-aesthetic-evaluation.
... Another purpose of Experiment 2 was exploratory, to test whether attractive clothing influenced the judgments of facial attractiveness. Clothing attractiveness modifies person perception (e.g., [66]), and our previous work [67] found that attractive faces enhance the rated attractiveness of clothing. ...
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Human facial attractiveness is related to physical features, such as clear complexion and symmetry. However, it is also known that facial attractiveness judgments are influenced by a wide range of non-physical factors. Here, we examined the effect of the personality information of a target person on facial attractiveness judgments. In Experiment 1, participants read a verbal description of a target person (high or low honesty), followed by the presentation of the target face and facial attractiveness rating. The honest personality increased the rated facial attractiveness, replicating a previous report. This “honesty premium” effect was independent of pre-rated facial attractiveness (Experiment 1), target gender, participant gender, and target clothing (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 found that creative personality did not affect facial attractiveness ratings, while an aggressive personality was suggested to decrease the rated facial attractiveness of male targets. We did not find evidence that participants’ moods caused these effects. The results suggest that the “what is good is beautiful” stereotype is robust and that facial attractiveness is malleable and dependent on various physical and non-physical information.
... Existing research focused on studying attractiveness by combining several variables, such as clothing, make-up, hair styling and facial expressions, which would make it more difficult to isolate the effects of all these variables individually (Lennon, 1990). Studies have indicated that facial attractiveness influences clothing attractiveness especially in women (Niimi and Yamada, 2020). ...
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Introduction Generally, people do judge a book by its cover. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of teachers’ attire on students’ perception of 34 psychological dimensions. Methods The research is an experiment, with self-reported data, in groups, based on a questionnaire. The participants were 173 students (Mage = 12.16, SD = 1.74) from Suceava, Romania. Two groups of students were asked to listen to a sample lesson of a therapeutic story, narrated by a teacher. One group was given a picture of the attractive teacher and the other group a picture of the unattractive teacher, and were told that the teacher who is narrating is the teacher in the picture. After listening to the same story, the respondents had to answer a questionnaire about teachers’ personality and characteristics. Results The results indicated that when the teacher is perceived as being more attractive, the students have a greater openness for school activities, the evaluation of the teacher’s personality is more positive, the evaluation of the teaching effort is more positive, students expect a higher grade, and the perceived age of the teacher is lower. Discussion The article underlines the role of clothing in molding student’s perception and raises questions about dress codes in schools. Implications for school context are discussed.
... Human capital investment attained from adolescent attractiveness can be examined through the grade point average and formal education level. Lennon (1990) suggested that adolescent attractiveness may be a factor that affects human capital development, as teachers put additional attention to attractive students. Mocan and Tekin (2010) found that unattractive high school students face disadvantages because preferential treatment may diminish human capital development. ...
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Being attractive is believed to give many benefits in life. Economic studies have observed that physical attractiveness is associated with a higher wage. The benefits of being attractive have been perceived from early age, to the labor market, and to the marriage market. Despite all the advantages that beauty brings, efforts are being made to achieve or maintain attractiveness. People spend substantial resources, such as time and money, to enhance appearance. Using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression, this study examines the correlation between perceived attractiveness and earnings among urban working women in Indonesia. Findings show that the income of women who perceive themselves as attractive is 19% higher than those who are unattractive after makeup application. Meanwhile, attractiveness without makeup application is found uncorrelated with earnings. Thus, grooming behavior may be a source of the observed wage premium for female workers.
... Many women in modern societal circumstances report purchasing and adorning revealing and form fitting clothing to feel confident and attractive, and to communicate sexual intent (Grammer, Renninger, & Fischer, 2004;Johnsen & Geher, 2017;Lennon, 1990;Lennon, Adomaitis, Koo, & Johnson, 2017;Montemurro & Gillen, 2013;Smolak, Murnen, & Myers, 2014). Several studies in a Western cultural context have supported that women are intolerant of same-sex others wearing more sexualized garb (e.g., Arnocky et al., 2019;Borau & Bonnefon, 2019b;Krems, Rankin, & Northover, 2019;Reynolds, Baumeister, & Maner, 2018;Vaillancourt & Sharma, 2011). ...
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Researchers have highlighted numerous sociocultural factors that have been shown to underpin human appearance enhancement practices, including the influence of peers, family, the media, and sexual objectification. Fewer scholars have approached appearance enhancement from an evolutionary perspective or considered how sociocultural factors interact with evolved psychology to produce appearance enhancement behavior. Following others, we argue that evidence from the field of evolutionary psychology can complement existing sociocultural models by yielding unique insight into the historical and cross-cultural ubiquity of competition over aspects of physical appearance to embody what is desired by potential mates. An evolutionary lens can help to make sense of reliable sex and individual differences that impact appearance enhancement, as well as the context-dependent nature of putative adaptations that function to increase physical attractiveness. In the current review, appearance enhancement is described as a self-promotion strategy used to enhance reproductive success by rendering oneself more attractive than rivals to mates, thereby increasing one’s mate value. The varied ways in which humans enhance their appearance are described, as well as the divergent tactics used by women and men to augment their appearance, which correspond to the preferences of opposite-sex mates in a heterosexual context. Evolutionarily relevant individual differences and contextual factors that vary predictably with appearance enhancement behavior are also discussed. The complementarity of sociocultural and evolutionary perspectives is emphasized and recommended avenues for future interdisciplinary research are provided for scholars interested in studying appearance enhancement behavior.
... It was, however, likely that the perception of threat would to some extent vary, which may also be why a response in terms of increased mate retention behaviours was not observed in all female participants. Besides variations in female participants' mate value and their partners' level of commitment, another possible source of variance may have been linked to the experimenter's non-standardised clothing (Lennon, 1990). She tried to maintain a certain style but had to adjust her attire depending on the changes in outside and inside temperatures during the year. ...
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The function of mate retention strategies is to preserve the bond between romantic partners and to prevent desertion, which is also why such behaviours are often elicited by the presence of a potential rival. Most existing studies on mate retention are based on self‐reports, which are prone to various biases. In this study, we observed non‐verbal behaviour of 47 long‐term romantic heterosexual couples during their interview with a female experimenter, whom the women in the couples may have perceived as a potential rival. We measured non‐verbal displays of mate retention tactics (direct guarding, intimacy inducement, appearance enhancement, and love and care display), as well as relationship maintenance strategies of openness and positivity. We expected that relationship quality as reported by both partners in the couple would be positively associated with ‘benefit‐provisioning’ mate retention behaviours and negatively associated with a ‘cost‐inflicting’ mate retention tactic (direct guarding). Relationship quality was assessed by Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale using both the total score of dyadic adjustment and a Dyadic Satisfaction subscale. We found a significant association between both partners' dyadic adjustment and satisfaction and woman's appearance enhancement behaviours (such as self‐touch, hair flip and primp) in the presence of her partner and a potential rival. We also found a negative association between partner's dyadic adjustment and woman's direct guarding of partner using short looks, and a positive association between woman's intimacy‐inducing behaviour using long gaze and her own dyadic satisfaction and her partner's dyadic adjustment. Our results highlight the specific role of female attractiveness in later stages of romantic relationships within the context of mate retention and draw attention to the significance of the use of observational techniques in addition to self‐reports.
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Charisma is considered as one's ability to attract and potentially influence others. Clearly, there can be considerable interest from an artificial intelligence's (AI) perspective to provide it with such skill. Beyond, a plethora of use cases opens up for computational measurement of human charisma, such as for tutoring humans in the acquisition of charisma, mediating human-to-human conversation, or identifying charismatic individuals in big social data. While charisma is a subject of research in its own right, a number of models exist that base it on various “pillars,” that is, dimensions, often following the idea that charisma is given if someone could and would help others. Examples of such pillars, therefore, include influence (could help) and affability (would help) in scientific studies, or power (could help), presence, and warmth (both would help) as a popular concept. Modeling high levels in these dimensions, i. e., high influence and high affability, or high power, presence, and warmth for charismatic AI of the future, e. g., for humanoid robots or virtual agents, seems accomplishable. Beyond, also automatic measurement appears quite feasible with the recent advances in the related fields of Affective Computing and Social Signal Processing. Here, we therefore present a brick by brick blueprint for building machines that can appear charismatic, but also analyse the charisma of others. We first approach the topic very broadly and discuss how the foundation of charisma is defined from a psychological perspective. Throughout the manuscript, the building blocks (bricks) then become more specific and provide concrete groundwork for capturing charisma through artificial intelligence (AI). Following the introduction of the concept of charisma, we switch to charisma in spoken language as an exemplary modality that is essential for human-human and human-computer conversations. The computational perspective then deals with the recognition and generation of charismatic behavior by AI. This includes an overview of the state of play in the field and the aforementioned blueprint. We then list exemplary use cases of computational charismatic skills. The building blocks of application domains and ethics conclude the article.
Chapter
With the advancement in technology and trends, it is important to be upgraded with the latest trends. A consumer wants good quality products which are of variable design. Going through a plethora of products to pick up a handful of products and again filter them to find out the best is a long and tedious process. Therefore, online shopping has taken such a hike, enabling users to cancel out the long process. Consumers can view the products sold by different online e-commerce websites and compare the prices, brands, and sizes of the products. But due to changes in trends, consumers fail to buy the product according to the market flow. This problem has motivated us to make a recommendation system, where the user can click an image or use an image in their gallery to find out the attractiveness of the jeans and top wear.KeywordsClothing attractivenessConvolutional neural networkClassificationAttractivenessModel accuracy
Article
Faces and clothing are clues to interpersonal perception. However, it is not known whether perceptions of faces and clothing are interacting with each other. We examined the effects of facial attractiveness on subjective ratings of clothing attractiveness. Participants were shown pictures of a person wearing a T-shirt in which the faces and shirt designs were manipulated. The faces were either male or female, attractive or unattractive. Participants were instructed to rate the attractiveness of the shirts, not the faces. Nevertheless, attractive female faces increased shirt attractiveness ratings, irrespective of the participant’s gender. Attractive male faces only slightly increased shirt attractiveness ratings. Gender differences and individual variability in visual attention were not responsible for these effects. The current results more likely reflect social or cultural factors, such as the higher priority placed on female facial attractiveness than male facial attractiveness in today’s society.
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Physical attractiveness has been linked to mental health, intelligence, ability and performance. Most of the studies on attractiveness have been experimental in nature and focused on perceptions of mental health and achievement rather than actual mental health and achievement. Operating within a status characteristics framework, we analyze the impact of attractiveness on the actual achievement and mental health of individuals in a national sample. We find consistently significant and monotonic relationships of attractiveness with four measures of achievement and eight measures of psychological well-being. Based on these analyses, we conclude that survey research findings corroborate experimental findings on attractiveness; that one's attractiveness does impinge on achievement and psychological well-being; and that status characteristics theory can be used to explain the effects of attractiveness on well-being and achievement.
Book
Physical attractiveness phenomena permeate society with somber ramifica tions. Correspondingly, practical applications of physical attractiveness phenomena are extensive. The consequence is that almost every person can benefit from knowledge about research on physical attractiveness. Such research material provides valuable information for persons established in their careers, as well as those preparing for a career. Similarly, parents at all stages of their life cycle should be cognizant of how physical attractiveness impacts the psychological and physiological development of children. Because no one is isolated from physical attractiveness phenomena, knowledge of this material should be imperative for everyone. This book consolidates research that specifically addresses physical attractiveness. The first summary was a classic review presented over 10 years ago (Berscheid & Walster, 1974). Since then the research literature has continued to grow, but no comprehensive review has again been published. Even though research summaries have been presented in a compilation of psychological abstracts (Cash, 1980), and in a discussion of stereotyping literature (Adams, 1982), the study of physical attractiveness phenomena is due for a comprehensive account and an analysis of the extensive, divergent research."
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Rosenthal and Jacobson found that a teacher's expectations about a child's behavior strongly influence his actual behavior. Generally, teachers form their first impressions of children, and thus develop their expectations for them, from two sources of information--the children's school record and their physical appearance. In this experiment, teachers were given objective information, presumably about a child's scholastic and social potential, accompanied by a photograph of an attractive or an unattractive boy or girl. It was found that the child's attractiveness was significantly associated with the teacher's expectations about how intelligent the child was, how interested in education his parents were, how far he was likely to progress in school, and how popular he would be with his peers.
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In three experiments, 470 pedestrians were observed as they walked past confederates standing on the edge of a sidewalk. Observations were made from a window overlooking the are, using time lapse filming with a movie camera. Pedestrians were observed as they moved along the sidewalk, and their distance from the edge of the sidewalk was measured at several points. Pedestrians deviated in their paths to stay farther from a male than a female, farther from two people than from one person, and farther from a beautiful than an unattractive woman. Sex, number, and attractiveness may be regarded as aspects of power, which serve to dominate various amounts of space.
Article
Most previous research has investigated the impact of physical attractiveness on young adults' first impressions of peers. The present study examined the relationship between physical attractiveness and peer perception at an earlier period of peer interaction in a setting where subjectes were personally acquainted. Using a picture-board sociometric technique, young children (4-6 years) indicated which classmates they liked and disliked and also nominated peers who exhibited various social behaviors. With the exception of younger females, unattractive children were relatively less popular than attractive children. Furthermore, unattractive children, particularly males were more frequently nominated as exhibiting antisocial behaviors than were attractive children. In contrast, attractive children tended to be perceived as more self-sufficient and independent in behavior than unattractive children.
Article
This research provided an empirically derived operational definition of dress which may be useful to scientists in the field of textiles and clothing. Viewing dress as a superordinate level category, basic and subordinate level categories of dress were sought using hierarchical cluster analytic techniques. In a controlled laboratory setting one hundred male and female subjects sorted 106 sketches of women's dress into piles based on the similarity of one form to all others in the stimulus set. The resulting structural arrangement of the stimuli was then studied and it was found that a taxonomic arrangement of dress emerged. Three basic groupings of dress emerged which were mutually exclusive and exhaustive : Special occasion, bifurcated, and skirted dress. Within each group subordinate subsets emerged; qualitative analyses of the features of these forms of dress as they relate to those in other groupings were presented. Analysis of the categories at the basic and subordinate levels suggests that subjects' cognitive process may have been based upon classification of contextual features as well as the structural features of dress. The distinctive features that distinguish the groupings of dress from one another may serve as a basis for an operational definition of dress for future research. Suggestions for future exploration of dimensions of dress, which can still further clarify the construct of dress were made.
Article
This study was an investigation of the independent and combined influence of physical attractiveness and dress on impressions thatfemale and male hiring agents form about the personality characteristics of females applying for either male or female dominated jobs. Three hundred college campus recruiters served as subjects. Each subject received a questionnaire with a photograph of a job applicant attached and a written request to rate the applicant on 26 personality characteristics using a five point scale. Data were subjected to factor analysis, analyses of variance and the Scheffe Test. Results indicated the dress of the applicants exerted a consistent influence on subjects'ratings. The physical attractiveness of the applicant, type of job applied for, and the sex of the hiring agent had only a slight effect on ratings.