Physically attractive faces attract us physically

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Electronic versions

Documents

DOI

  • Robin S. S. Kramer
    University of Lincoln
  • Jerrica Mulgrew
    Western University, Ontario
  • Nicola C. Anderson
    University of British Columbia
  • Daniil Vasilyev
    Birkbeck College, University of London
  • Alan Kingstone
    University of British Columbia
  • Michael G. Reynolds
    Trent University, Ontario
  • Robert Ward
When interacting with other humans, facial expressions provide valuable information for approach or avoid decisions. Here, we consider facial attractiveness as another important dimension upon which approach-avoidance behaviours may be based. In Experiments 1-3, we measured participants’ responses to attractive and unattractive women’s faces in an approach-avoidance paradigm in which there was no explicit instruction to evaluate facial attractiveness or any other stimulus attribute. Attractive faces were selected more often, a bias that may be sensitive to response outcomes and was reduced when the faces were inverted. Experiment 4 explored an entirely implicit measure of approach, with participants passively viewing single faces while standing on a force platform. We found greater lean towards attractive faces, with this pattern being most obvious in male participants. Taken together, these results demonstrate that attractiveness activates approach-avoidance tendencies, even in the absence of any task demand.
Original languageEnglish
Article number104193
JournalCognition
Volume198
Early online date1 Feb 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 May 2020

Total downloads

No data available
View graph of relations