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Motivated Behavioral Outcomes Affect Ratings of Attractiveness
Abstract
-A relatively new theory of motivation posits that purposeful human behavior may be partly explained by multidimensional individual differences "traits of action" (motives). Its 15 motives can be characterized according to their purpose: individual integrity, competitiveness, and cooperativeness. Existing evidence supports the model on which the motives are based and the reliability and validity of strategies to assess them. This experiment tested whether the hypothetical results of consistent, motivated cooperative and competitive behavior could affect ratings of attractiveness. Male and female participants (N = 98; M age = 18.8, SD = 1.4) were shown 24 opposite-sex facial photos ranging in attractiveness. The photos were paired with one of three conditions representing theoretical outcomes that would result from low, control, and high levels of cooperative and competitive motives. As predicted, outcome descriptions representing high motive strength of six motives statistically significantly affected ratings of attractiveness. This result was independent of sex of participant and consistent with the theory.
... One theory and inventory that has been developed is the Assessment of Individual Motives-Questionnaire, or AIM-Q, theory (Bernard & Lac, 2014a). Unlike personality theory and the five-factor model, this model has had little research and most of it has been done by the original authors with the research including validation studies (Bernard et al., 2005) and recently studies into how it relates to attractiveness (Bernard & Hardy, 2014) and psychopathy (Bernard, 2013). With the lack of research into multi-trait motivation theory, there was also minimal research into the intersection of personality and motivation, specifically as it related to multi-trait research, which is explored more deeply in the next chapter. ...
... One example was an article of research that dealt with how different motivation types might affect attractiveness (Bernard & Hardy, 2014). Finally, the last publication of importance by Bernard (2010b) was the manual for the Assessment of Individual Motives-Questionnaire, which was also important for the implementation of this research. ...
This research uses a canonical correlation to investigate the predictive abilities of the five-factor model of personality on a multi-trait model of personality.
This was dissertation research, which was part of the requirements for my PhD.
Given the far-reaching implications of facial attractiveness for human behavior, its neural correlates have been the focus of much recent interest. However, whereas the focus of previous studies has been on highlighting a common network that underlies attractiveness judgments for all participants, we were also interested in examining individual differences in perceived facial attractiveness. We scanned 29 participants with functional MRI as they evaluated the attractiveness of faces. Activation in left anterior frontal cortex and right middle occipital gyrus covaried as a function of attractiveness ratings, which we attribute to making evaluative judgments involving the rewarding properties of faces. In addition, comparing participants who on average gave higher versus lower ratings to faces revealed activation in right middle temporal gyrus exclusively. We suggest that the activation in middle temporal gyrus reflects an aspect of individual differences in perceived facial attractiveness, possibly driven by the convergence of information from a variety of sources that extend beyond the domain of faces exclusively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
The Assessment of Individual Motives-Questionnaire (AIM-Q) was designed to assess 15 latent dimensions based on a relatively new evolutionary theory of human motivation. The present studies are the first to examine these dimensions using confirmatory factor analysis in an attempt to test the model proposed by the theory. Study 1 (N = 1,411) explored ways of producing a short version tapping the 15 dimensions. Fit indices suggested that a model consisting of 60 items tapping 15 weak to moderately correlated dimensions best described the data. Four alternative models that tested a completely orthogonal structure and a unidimensional structure were found to poorly represent the data. Study 2 (N = 490) successfully cross-validated the 60-item 15 dimension version using a different sample. These results support the multidimensional motivational theory on which the AIM-Q is based as well as the shorter version used to assess its dimensions.
A review of the use of experimental techniques to develop and test theories of personality processes. Threats to valid inference including problems of scaling, reliability, and unintended confounds are considered. Basic experi- mental designs are discussed as ways of eliminating some, but not all threats to validity. A number of basic analytical procedures are demonstrated using simulated data that can be accessed from the web based appendix. Personality is an abstraction used to explain consistency and coherency in an indi- viduals pattern of aects, cognitions, desires and behaviors. What one feels, thinks, wants and does changes from moment to moment and from situation to situation but shows a patterning across situations and over time that may be used to recognize, describe and even to understand a person. The task of the personality researcher is to identify the consistencies and dierences within and between individuals (what one feels, thinks, wants and does) and eventually to try to explain them in terms of set of testable hypotheses (why one feels, thinks, wants and does). Personality research is the last refuge of the generalist in psychology: it requires a familiarity with the mathematics of personality measurement, an understanding of genetic mechanisms and physiological systems as they interact with environmental influences to lead to development over the life span, an appreciation of how to measure and manipulate aect and cognitive states, and an ability to integrate all of this into a coherent description of normal and abnormal behavior across situations and across time. Although the study of personality is normally associated with correlational tech- niques relating responses or observations in one situation or at one time with responses in other situations and other times, it is also possible to examine causal relations through
Growing evidence shows that features we find attractive in members of the opposite sex signal important underlying dimensions of health and reproductive viability. It has been discovered that men with attractive faces have higher quality sperm, women with attractive bodies are more fertile, men and women with attractive voices lose their virginity sooner, men who spend more money than they earn have more sex partners, and lap dancers make more tips when they are in the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle. This paper highlights recent evidence showing that the way we perceive other people has been shaped by our evolutionary history. An evolutionary approach provides a powerful tool for understanding the consistency and diversity of mating preferences and behaviors across individuals and cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Previous studies have shown that male attractiveness can be enhanced by manipulation of status through, for example, the medium of costume. The present study experimentally manipulated status by seating the same target model (male and female matched for attractiveness) expressing identical facial expressions and posture in either a 'high status' (Silver Bentley Continental GT) or a 'neutral status' (Red Ford Fiesta ST) motor-car. A between-subjects design was used whereby the above photographic images were presented to male and female participants for attractiveness rating. Results showed that the male target model was rated as significantly more attractive on a rating scale of 1-10 when presented to female participants in the high compared to the neutral status context. Males were not influenced by status manipulation, as there was no significant difference between attractiveness ratings for the female seated in the high compared to the neutral condition. It would appear that despite a noticeable increase in female ownership of prestige/luxury cars over recent years males, unlike females remain oblivious to such cues in matters pertaining to opposite-sex attraction. These findings support the results of previous status enhancement of attractiveness studies especially those espousing sex differences in mate preferences are due to sex-specific adaptations.
We hypothesized from the parasite theory of sexual selection that men (Homo sapiens) would prefer averageness and symmetry in women's faces, that women would prefer averageness and symmetry in men's faces, and that women would prefer largeness (not averageness) of the secondary sexual traits of men's faces. We generated computer images of men's and women's faces and of composites of the faces of each sex, and then had men and women rate opposite-sex faces for 4 variables (attractive, dominant, sexy, and healthy). Symmetry, averageness, and the sizes of facial features were measured on the computerized faces. The hypotheses were supported, with the exception of the hypothesized effects of averageness of female and male faces on attractiveness ratings. This is the first study to show that facial symmetry has a positive influence on facial attractiveness ratings.
Research on infant face perception has shown that infants' preferences for attractive faces exist well before socialization from parents, peers, and the media can affect these preferences. Four studies assessed a cognitive explanation for the development of attractiveness preferences: cognitive averaging and infant preferences for mathematically averaged faces, or prototypes. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that both adults and 6-month-old infants prefer prototypical, mathematically averaged faces. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that 6-month-olds can abstract the central tendency from a group of naturalistic faces. Taken together, the studies suggest that infants' preferences for attractive faces can be explained by general information-processing mechanisms.
Common maxims about beauty suggest that attractiveness is not important in life. In contrast, both fitness-related evolutionary theory and socialization theory suggest that attractiveness influences development and interaction. In 11 meta-analyses, the authors evaluate these contradictory claims, demonstrating that (a) raters agree about who is and is not attractive, both within and across cultures; (b) attractive children and adults are judged more positively than unattractive children and adults, even by those who know them; (c) attractive children and adults are treated more positively than unattractive children and adults, even by those who know them; and (d) attractive children and adults exhibit more positive behaviors and traits than unattractive children and adults. Results are used to evaluate social and fitness-related evolutionary theories and the veracity of maxims about beauty.
Evidence from developed Western societies is reviewed for the claims that (a) physical attractiveness judgments are substantially based on body size and shape, symmetry, sex-typical hormonal markers, and other specific cues and (b) physical attractiveness and these cues substantially predict health. Among the cues that the authors review, only female waist-to-hip ratio and weight appear to predict both attractiveness and health in the claimed manner. Other posited cues--symmetry and sex-typical hormonal markers among them--failed to predict either attractiveness or health (or both) in either sex. The authors find that there is some indication that attractiveness has an overall relationship with health among women, but little indication that male attractiveness relates to male health.
Those who are physically attractive reap many benefits--from higher average wages to a wider variety of mate choices. Recent studies have investigated what constitutes beauty and how beauty affects explicit social judgments, but little is known about the perceptual or cognitive processing that is affected by aesthetic judgments of faces and why beauty affects our behavior. In this study, the authors show that beauty is perceived when information is minimized by masking or rapid presentation. Perceiving and processing beauty appear to require little attention and to bias subsequent cognitive processes. These facts may make beauty difficult to ignore, possibly leading to its importance in social evaluations.
The authors review psychology's historical, competing perspectives on human motivation and propose a new comprehensive theory. The new theory is based on evolutionary principles as proposed by C. Darwin (1859) and modified by W. D. Hamilton (1964, 1996), R. L. Trivers (1971, 1972), and R. Dawkins (1989). The theory unifies biological, behavioral, and cognitive approaches to motivation. The theory is neuropsychological and addresses conscious and nonconscious processes that underlie motivation, emotion, and self-control. The theory predicts a hierarchical structure of motives that are measurable as individual differences in human behavior. These motives are related to social problem domains (D. B. Bugental, 2000; D. T. Kenrick, N. P. Li, & J. Butner, 2003), and each is hypothesized to solve a particular problem of human inclusive fitness.
Three social science approaches-evolutionary psychology, behavioral ecology, and behavioral genetics-share the metatheory of evolution. They also suggest several mechanisms that may account for heritable individual differences in personality and motivation, including stabilizing selection, fluctuating selection, trade-offs, balancing selection, life history theory, and behavioral syndromes. These mechanisms are discussed as possible explanations for individual differences in the five-factor model of personality and in a new theory of human motivation. The theory postulates that 15 latent motive dimensions evolved in humans to facilitate behavior in five social domains. Trade-offs that, in combination with fluctuating and balancing selection, might have maintained individual differences in motive phenotypes are described. The reliability and validity of a method to assess individual differences in the strength of these motive dimensions is also discussed.
Physical strength and physical attractiveness are both hypothesized as indicators of overall phenotypic condition in humans. Strategic Pluralism Theory (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000) predicts that men’s orientation toward uncommitted mating is facultatively calibrated (i.e. contingently adjusted over ontogeny) in response to condition-dependent physical features, such as strength and attractiveness. Herein, we suggest that previous research bearing on this hypothesis has been limited because (a) researchers have often neglected to distinguish between mating orientations and past sexual behavior and (b) sample sizes have not always been large enough to reliably detect correlations of moderate magnitude. To address these issues and extend previous findings, we present aggregated data from three independent samples of young adults that permit us to examine multiple measures of physical strength and attractiveness in relation to uncommitted mating orientation, committed mating orientation, and past sexual behavior. As predicted, meta-analyses across samples demonstrated that strength and attractiveness were positively correlated with men’s (but not women’s) uncommitted mating orientation (but not their committed mating orientation). In addition, strength (in men only) and attractiveness (in both sexes) positively predicted participants’ number of past sex partners. Moreover, path analyses demonstrated that the association of men’s physical features with their number of sex partners was mediated via uncommitted mating orientation. These results (a) provide the most extensive support to date for the hypothesis that men’s uncommitted mating orientation is calibrated to condition-dependent features and (b) clarify the sex-specific functional links among physical features, mating orientations and sexual behavior.
Does women’s body attractiveness predict indices of reproductive capacity? Prior research has provided evidence that large breast size and low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) are positively associated with women’s estrogen and progesterone concentrations, but no previous studies appear to have directly tested whether ratings of women's body attractiveness are predicted by higher concentrations of ovarian hormones measured across broad regions of the menstrual cycle. Here, we collected daily saliva samples across 1–2 menstrual cycles from a sample of young women; assayed the samples for estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone; obtained anthropometric measurements of the women’s bodies; and also obtained attractiveness ratings of the women’s bodies from photographs of them taken in standardized clothing with faces obscured. Contrary to previous research, mean hormone concentrations were uncorrelated with breast size and WHR. Body mass index (BMI) was a very strong negative predictor of body attractiveness ratings, similar to previous findings. Zero-order associations between women’s mean hormone concentrations and mean attractiveness ratings were not significant; however, after controlling for BMI, attractiveness ratings were independently and positively associated with both estradiol and testosterone concentrations. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for whether attractiveness assessment mechanisms are specialized for the detection of cues of differential fecundity in young women’s bodies.
We introduce a personality inventory designed to measure six major dimensions of personality derived from lexical studies of personality structure. The HEXACO Personality Inventory (HEXACO-PI) consists of 24 facet-level personality trait scales that define the six personality factors named Honesty-Humility (H), Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to Experience (O). In this validation study involving a sample of over 400 respondents, all HEXACO-PI scales showed high internal consistency reliabilities, conformed to the hypothesized six-factor structure, and showed adequate convergent validities with external variables. The HEXACO factor space, and the rotations of factors within that space, are discussed with reference to J. S. Wiggins' work on the circumplex.
A new evolutionary psychology theory of human motivation posits that motive adaptations guide behavior in purposeful directions. The Assessment of Individual Motives-Questionnaire (AIM-Q; Bernard, Mills, Swenson, & Walsh, 2006) is a new objective multitrait-multimethod measure of individual differences in the strength of 15 motives derived from this theory: Affection, Aggression, Altruism, Appearance, Conscience, Curiosity, Health, Legacy, Material, Meaning, Mental, Physical, Play, Safety, and Sex. The present study investigates the validity of individual AIM-Q motives in a sample of N = 167. Hypothesized relationships between certain of these motives and existing reliable and valid measures of aggression, cognition, playfulness, and sexuality are tested. Results generally support the construct validity of some of the motive scales.
Facial attractiveness has been related to health in both men and women. Certain psychological, physiological, and secondary sex characteristics have been used as accurate markers of hormonal and developmental health. The main objective of this study was to investigate the capacity of women to select males of high reproductive quality based on their facial attractiveness. A total of 66 males were included in the study. Each of them provides a semen sample, and frontal and lateral photographs were taken. Semen analysis was made according to standard WHO (1999) guidelines for morphology, motility, and concentration. Moreover, a Sperm Index (SI) was calculated as the principal component of these parameters. In Study 1, 66 women rated the attractiveness, as a possible permanent couple, of pictures of all 66 men. In Study 2, the pictures of a subset of 12 males were randomly selected from three semen quality subgroups (terciles named good, normal, and bad, according to the value of the SI). These 12 pictures were rated on attractiveness by two independent sets of women (N = 88 and N = 76). Facial attractiveness ratings were significantly (P < .05) and positively correlated with sperm morphology, motility, and SI, but not with concentration, for all the women sets.
Attractive facial features in women are assumed to signal fertility, but whether facial attractiveness predicts reproductive success in women is still a matter of debate. We investigated the association between facial attractiveness at young adulthood and reproductive life history-number of children and pregnancies-in women of a rural community. For the analysis of reproductive success, we divided the sample into women who used contraceptives and women who did not. Introducing two-dimensional geometric morphometric methodology, we analysed which specific characteristics in facial shape drive the assessment of attractiveness and covary with lifetime reproductive success. A set of 93 (semi)landmarks was digitized as two-dimensional coordinates in postmenopausal faces. We calculated the degree of fluctuating asymmetry and regressed facial shape on facial attractiveness at youth and reproductive success. Among women who never used hormonal contraceptives, we found attractive women to have more biological offspring than less attractive women. These findings are not affected by sociodemographic variables. Postmenopausal faces corresponding to high reproductive success show more feminine features facial characteristics previously assumed to be honest cues to fertility. Our findings support the notion that facial attractiveness at the age of mate choice predicts reproductive success and that facial attractiveness is based on facial characteristics, which seem to remain stable until postmenopausal age.
Scientists and philosophers have searched for centuries for a parsimonious answer to the question of what constitutes beauty. We approached this problem from both an evolutionary and information-processing rationale and predicted that faces representing the average value of the population would be consistently judged as attractive. To evaluate this hypothesis, we digitized samples of male and female faces, mathematically averaged them, and had adults judge the attractiveness of both the individual faces and the computer-generated composite images. Both male (three samples) and female (three samples) composite faces were judged as more attractive than almost all the individual faces comprising the composites. A strong linear trend also revealed that the composite faces became more attractive as more faces were entered. These data showing that attractive faces are only average are consistent with evolutionary pressures that favor characteristics close to the mean of the population and with cognitive processes that favor prototypical category members.
Data from three sources—an initial self sample (N=108) and a friend sample (N=103) and relative sample (N=103) recruited by self sample participants—were used to test the consensual and behavioral validity of new individual differences
measures of 15 dimensions of motivation represented in the assessment of individual motives-questionnaire (AIM-Q). AIM-Q scores
for all three samples converged and hypotheses of their predicted relationships with reports of the occurrence and frequency
of a variety of behavior criteria of some importance were supported in most cases. These results support the utility of the
AIM-Q as a new measure of motives in purposeful human behavior.
The human face communicates an impressive number of visual signals. Although adults' ratings of facial attractiveness are consistent across studies, even cross-culturally, there has been considerable controversy surrounding attempts to identify the facial features that cause faces to be judged attractive or unattractive. Studies of physical attractiveness have attempted to identify the features that contribute to attractiveness by studying the relationships between attractiveness and (a) symmetry, (b) averageness, and (c) nonaverage sexually dimorphic features (hormone markers). Evolutionary psychology proposes that these characteristics all pertain to health, suggesting that humans have evolved to view certain features as attractive because they were displayed by healthy individuals. However, the question remains how single features that are considered attractive relate to each other, and if they form a single ornament that signals mate quality. Moreover, some researchers have recently explained attractiveness preferences in terms of individual differences that are predictable. This article briefly describes what is currently known from attractiveness research, reviews some recent advances, and suggests areas for future researchers' attention.
Humans in societies around the world discriminate between potential mates on the basis of attractiveness in ways that can dramatically affect their lives. From an evolutionary perspective, a reasonable working hypothesis is that the psychological mechanisms underlying attractiveness judgments are adaptations that have evolved in the service of choosing a mate so as to increase gene propagation throughout evolutionary history. The main hypothesis that has directed evolutionary psychology research into facial attractiveness is that these judgments reflect information about what can be broadly defined as an individual’s health. This has been investigated by examining whether attractiveness judgments show special design for detecting cues that allow us to make assessments of overall phenotypic condition. This review examines the three major lines of research that have been pursued in order to answer the question of whether attractiveness reflects non-obvious indicators of phenotypic condition. These are studies that have examined facial symmetry, averageness, and secondary sex characteristics as hormone markers.
Females gain direct or indirect fitness benefits by choosing between males with traits indicating "good genes," but we usually know very little about the nature of these genes. However, it has been suggested that genetic quality may often be defined as heterozygosity at certain loci. Here, we show that heterozygosity at three key loci in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is associated with facial attractiveness: Faces of men who are heterozygous at all three loci are judged more attractive by women than faces of men who are homozygous at one or more of these loci. MHC genes code for proteins involved in immune response. Consistent with this function, faces of MHC heterozygotes are also perceived to be healthier. In a separate test, in the absence of any other cues, patches of skin from the cheeks of heterozygotes are judged healthier than skin of homozygotes, and these ratings correlate with attractiveness judgements for the whole face. Because levels of MHC similarity can influence mate preferences in animals and humans, we conducted a second experiment with genotyped women raters, finding that preferences for heterozygosity are independent of the degree of MHC similarity between the men and the female raters. Our results are the first to directly link facial attractiveness and a measure of genetic quality and suggest a mechanism to help explain common consensus concerning individual attractiveness. In a relatively monogamous species like humans, evolutionary benefits from choosing heterozygous mates could include prolonged parental care and reduced risk of contracting disease for females and their offspring. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The popular notion that alcohol intoxication enhances perceptions of the physical attractiveness of the opposite sex has been inconsistently supported. The current study tested intoxicated and non-intoxicated persons of both genders in naturalistic settings after measuring their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) by a breath test. A sample of 80 heterosexual university student social drinkers was recruited at a campus pub and campus parties over a 3-month period to take a survey rating the attractiveness of unfamiliar faces of the opposite gender presented in photographs. Attractiveness ratings were positively correlated with BAC. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted on attractiveness ratings with independent variables of gender and BAC group, with three levels of the latter: non-intoxicated (BAC = 0), moderately intoxicated (BAC .01% - .09%), and highly intoxicated (BAC .10% - .19%). Both intoxicated groups gave significantly higher attractiveness ratings than non-intoxicated controls. The findings confirm the "beer goggles" phenomenon of folk psychology for both genders, although the mechanism remains unclear.
Physical attractiveness has been associated with mating behavior, but its role in reproductive success of contemporary humans has received surprisingly little attention. In the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (1244 women, 997 men born between 1937 and 1940) we examined whether attractiveness assessed from photographs taken at age ~18 predicted the number of biological children at age 53-56. In women, attractiveness predicted higher reproductive success in a nonlinear fashion, so that attractive (second highest quartile) women had 16% and very attractive (highest quartile) women 6% more children than their less attractive counterparts. In men, there was a threshold effect so that men in the lowest attractiveness quartile had 13% fewer children than others who did not differ from each other in the average number of children. These associations were partly but not completely accounted for by attractive participants' increased marriage probability. A linear regression analysis indicated relatively weak directional selection gradient for attractiveness (β=0.06 in women, β=0.07 in men). These findings indicate that physical attractiveness may be associated with reproductive success in humans living in industrialized settings.
Researchers have argued that humans' attraction to average faces reflects an evolved psychological mechanism to identify high-quality mates. If this direct-selection account is correct, there is no reason to expect a similar averageness bias for stimuli that are irrelevant to reproductive fitness. The current study, however, found a strong relationship between averageness and attractiveness for dogs, wristwatches, and birds. The most parsimonious explanation is that humans have a general attraction to prototypical exemplars, and that their attraction to average faces is a reflection of this more general attraction. We tested whether a general preference for familiar stimuli can account for the attractiveness of averageness. This account was not supported for dogs or birds, but could not be ruled out for watches.
Sex and motivation: differences in evolutionary psychology-based motives
- L C Bernard
The incremental validity of motive “traits of action:” predicting behavior longitudinally
- L C Bernard
- A Lac