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Hair length, facial attractiveness, personality attribution: A multiple fitness model of hairdressing
Abstract
Multiple Fitness Model states that attractiveness varies across multiple dimensions, with each feature representing a different aspect of mate value. In the present study, male raters judged the attractiveness of young females with neotenous and mature facial features, with various hair lengths. Results revealed that the physical appearance of long-haired women was rated high, regardless of their facial attractiveness being valued high or low. Women rated as most attractive were those whose face displayed neotenous features in the center of the face (large eyes, small nose) and sexual maturity features, such as long head hair at the periphery. Furthermore, desirable psychological and social traits were attributed to individuals with different hairstyles: male raters associated long hair with the image of a determined, intelligent, independent, and healthy individual, whereas short hair was associated with characteristics such as honest, caring, emotional, and feminine. The possible relationships between attractiveness ratings of scalp hair and perceived social and psychological traits are discussed.
... Despite the prevailing theme of women's hair throughout centuries and cultures, surprisingly little psychological research has been conducted to unravel the appealing nature of women's hair. Following Darwin (1871), who asserted that women's hair is a factor in sexual selection, a few attempts have been made to associate women's hair with reproductive potential or attractiveness (Hinsz et al., 2001;Bereczkei and Mesko, 2006), shedding light on the potential role of women's hair in mating contexts. However, the potential psychological role of hair in romantic relationships remains unclear owing to a lack of thorough investigation on the function of hair. ...
... Greater quality and length of women's hair may be associated with more frequent sexual intercourse in romantic dyads for three reasons. First, previous studies have shown that lengthy and good quality hair in women is positively evaluated or valued by men (Jackson and McGill, 1996;Grammer et al., 2002;Mesko and Bereczkei, 2004;Sugiyama, 2005;Bereczkei and Mesko, 2006). What is positively evaluated or considered attractive to the opposite sex is more likely to arouse sexual desire in them and suggests an individual's reproductive potential. ...
... Notably, hair quality, being less controllable than hair length, is potentially a more innate indicator of a woman's mate value or genetic quality. Although long hair on women has been linked to greater attractiveness (Mesko and Bereczkei, 2004), shorter hair on women can denote positive traits such as caring and emotional strength (Bereczkei and Mesko, 2006). In contexts where factors like parenting are considered, hair length may not play as significant a role as it does in the pursuit of romantic partners. ...
The image of an ideal woman often involves her having long, silky hair. However, the dearth of psychological research on hair limits the understanding of how women’s hair functions in romantic relationships. While some scholars have found that the appearance of women’s hair signals reproductive potential to men, whether women’s hair may affect their sexual lives remains unknown. To investigate the function of hair in romantic relationships, we tested whether women’s hair quality and length are associated with sexual frequency in marital dyads. We conducted a paid online survey involving 204 heterosexual marital dyads. The results indicated that women with long and high-quality hair experienced more frequent sexual intercourse with their spouse, as it heightened their husband’s perception of their attractiveness and, consequently, intensified their husband’s sexual desire toward them. Neither men’s hair length nor quality was associated with sexual frequency. Implications of the study are further discussed.
... Hairstyle -how one cuts, wears or arranges one's hair -is a key aspect of fashion. Hair can be short, medium or long (Bereczkei and Mesko 2006), modelled with one or several crests as dreadlocks, braids (cornrow) and extensions, among others, which come in various designs such as curves and straight lines (Dzramedo 2009). Hairstyles have different meanings. ...
... The attractiveness of hairstyles is associated with the specific style adopted. For example, short hair and buns do not convey sexual appeal and attractiveness (Bereczkei and Mesko 2006). In general, the choice of hairstyle is informed by one's quest to be attractive (Ellis-Hervey et al. 2016). ...
In this article, we review research on social factors with the main focus being on how self, social factors and fashion consciousness interact with the choice of hairstyles. By highlighting the situations of 397 Ghanaian female youth, we show how their perspectives define beautiful hairstyles and how social factors interact with the choice of hairstyle with fashion consciousness as a mediator. Using social actual-concept and social factors on behaviours as theoretical frameworks, we show the influence of religious influence, views of social group members, attractiveness and uniqueness on choice of hairstyle. Mediator analyses indicate that fashion consciousness explains the interactions among views of social group members and attractiveness with the choice of hairstyle. Implications for marketing and future directions for research on choice of hairstyle are suggested.
... Women also report wanting longer hair than they have, and believe that men would also prefer them to have longer hair than they do (Jacobi & Cash, 1994). Men rate female faces with (experimentally added) long hair as more youthful, healthy, sexy and feminine (Mesko & Bereczkei, 2004), as well as more intelligent and dominant (Bereczkei & Mesko, 2006). Interestingly, long hair may also contribute to perceptions of promiscuity, when worn out rather than tied back (demonstrated solely by Matz & Hinsz, 2018). ...
Intrasexual competition between women is often covert, and targets rivals' appearance. Here we investigate appearance advice as a vector for female intrasexual competition. Across two studies (N = 192, N = 258) women indicated how much hair they would recommend hypothetical clients have cut off in their hypothetical salon. Clients varied in their facial attractiveness (depicted pictorially), the condition of their hair, and how much hair they wished to have cut off. Participants also provided self-report measures of their own mate value and intrasexual competitiveness. In both studies, participants' intrasexual competitiveness positively predicted how much hair they recommended clients have cut off, especially when the hair was in good condition and the clients reported wanting as little as possible cut off-circumstances wherein cutting off too much hair is most likely to indicate sabotage. Considering data across both collectively, women tended to recommend cutting the most hair off clients they perceived to be as attractive as themselves. These data suggest that just like mating, intrasexual competition may be assortative with respect to mate value. They also demonstrate that competitive motives can impact female-female interactions even in scenarios which feature no prospective mates, and are nominally unrelated to mate guarding or mating competition.
... There appear to be only a few empirical studies that have investigated the relationship between these features of hair and perceptions of attractiveness. Longer hair in women is associated with greater attractiveness (see Grammer et al., 2002), an e ect that is independent of facial attractiveness (Bereczkei & Mesko, 2006). Hair density and ber diameter also appear to have independent e ects on perceptions of attractiveness (Fink et al., 2016). ...
Attractiveness is a perception produced by psychological mechanisms in the mind of the perceiver. Understanding attractiveness therefore requires an understanding of these mechanisms. This includes the selection pressures that shaped them and their resulting information-processing architecture, including the cues they attend to and the context-dependent manner in which they respond to those
cues. We review a diverse array of fitness-relevant cues along with evidence that the human mind processes these cues when making attractiveness judgments. For some of these cues, there is
unequivocal evidence that the cue influences attractiveness judgments, but exactly why attractiveness-assessment
mechanisms track that cue is an area of current debate. Another area of active inquiry is when these cues influence attractiveness judgments: because the fitness costs and benefits associated
with these cues would have varied across contexts, selection should have shaped attractiveness-assessment mechanisms to be sensitive to contextual variables. As a consequence of this context-sensitive
design, these mechanisms, despite being universal, should produce attractiveness assessments that vary systematically and predictably across contexts. We review evidence indicating that this is how human perception of attractiveness works, and highlight the need for more comprehensive and systematic investigations into contextual variation in human standards of attractiveness. We conclude by identifying limitations on existing evolutionary research on attractiveness, and provide concrete suggestions for how future work can address these issues.
... In the homunculus of Bob Dylan, hair is underrepresented. Literature states that hair colour, hair length and hairstyle all influence the perceived attractiveness [20,21] . That could be the reason for the high frequency of hair in Lady Gaga's songs. ...
... While photographs (with or without alteration) can be used to compare different facial types, individual features and characters such as complexion, race, hair, eyes or lips may consciously or subconsciously influence the observer's assessment. 20 That is, when multiple photographs of different subjects are presented, the observers' preferences may not necessarily be a reflection of the specific attributes being investigated (e.g. facial convexity, mandibular projection), and instead may simply indicate observers' preferences of other facial features visible on the photographs. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there were differences in perception of facial profile esthetics at the upper lip, gnathic, and genial levels according to observer gender and age in the Korean layperson population.
Materials and Methods
Ten male (M1∼M10) and 10 female (F1∼F10) silhouettes with differing facial profiles at the level of the upper lip, mandibular, and chin were created from a male and female facial profile deemed well-balanced and orthognathic by reviewer consensus. These silhouettes were presented to 288 participants who were asked to rank the 5 most attractive male and female profiles. The participants were composed of 144 males and 144 females divided into 4 age groups: Group I (under 20 years), Group II (20∼39 years), Group III (40∼59 years), Group IV (over 60 years). The most preferred profile and observer scores were investigated and calculated. Descriptive analysis, chi-square test and ANOVA was used for statistical analysis according to age and gender.
Result
The most preferred male and female silhouettes were orthognathic profiles. There was no significant difference according to gender when rating male (p=0.281) and female (p=0.442) silhouettes. No statistically significant difference was observed even when analyzed according to age groups. Although the difference in observer scores among each ranking showed a statistical difference according to age groups, the overall rankings showed a similar pattern both in male and female silhouettes. In the same age group, no difference in rank scores according to gender was observed. Severe concave profiles were found to have the lowest rank.
Conclusion
An orthognathic profile was rated as the most desirable in the Korean layperson population, with few differences in perception of esthetic facial profile according to age and gender.
... Moreover, the idea that voice pitch is a reliable cue to biosocial dimensions fails to account for the fact that children and adults typically develop stereotypic views and prejudices concerning groups that are unjustified (and thus uncorrelated with any observable traits or behaviors, e.g., Bereczkei and Mesko 2006;Bigler and Liben 2007;Zebrowitz 1996). Specifically, socialization research has shown that, consistent with the general principle of correspondence bias (Gilbert and Malone 1995), individuals tend to ascribe gender-stereotypic attributes to job holders that are in line with occupational sex ratios, even if those attributes are irrelevant to those jobs (Cejka and Eagly 1999). ...
The adult voice is a strong bio-social marker for masculinity and femininity. In this study we investigated whether children make gender stereotypical judgments about adults’ occupational competence on the basis of their voice. Forty-eight 8- to 10- year olds were asked to rate the competence of adult voices that varied in vocal masculinity (by artificially manipulating voice pitch) and were randomly paired with 9 occupations (3 stereotypically male, 3 female, 3 gender-neutral). In line with gender stereotypes, children rated men as more competent for the male occupations and women as more competent for the female occupations. Moreover, children rated speakers of both sexes with feminine (high-pitched) voices as more competent for the female occupations. Finally, children rated men (but not women) with masculine (low-pitched) voices as more competent for stereotypically male occupations. Our results thus indicate that stereotypical voice-based judgments of occupational competence previously identified in adults are already present in children, and likely to affect how they consider adults and interact with them in their social environment.
We express our personality through verbal and nonverbal behavior. While verbal cues are mostly related to the semantics of what we say, nonverbal cues include our posture, gestures, and facial expressions. Appropriate expression of these behavioral elements improves conversational virtual agents’ communication capabilities and realism. Although previous studies focus on co-speech gesture generation, they do not consider the personality aspect of the synthesized animations. We show that automatically generated co-speech gestures naturally express personality traits, and heuristics-based adjustments for such animations can further improve personality expression. To this end, we present a framework for enhancing co-speech gestures with the different personalities of the Five-Factor model. Our experiments suggest that users perceive increased realism and improved personality expression when combining heuristics-based motion adjustments with co-speech gestures.
Why do people fall in love? Does passion fade with time? What makes for a happy, healthy relationship? This introduction to relationship science follows the lifecycle of a relationship – from attraction and initiation, to the hard work of relationship maintenance, to dissolution and ways to strengthen a relationship. Designed for advanced undergraduates studying psychology, communication or family studies, this textbook presents a fresh, diversity-infused approach to relationship science. It includes real-world examples and critical-thinking questions, callout boxes that challenge students to make connections, and researcher interviews that showcase the many career paths of relationship scientists. Article Spotlights reveal cutting-edge methods, while Diversity and Inclusion boxes celebrate the variety found in human love and connection. Throughout the book, students see the application of theory and come to recognize universal themes in relationships as well as the nuances of many findings. Instructors can access lecture slides, an instructor manual, and test banks.
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