Two experiments were conducted to investigate the implications of the gen- eralized physical attractiveness stereotype. In Experiment 1, male and female.
Journal ol Personality and Social Psychology 1976, Vol. 33, No. 6, 772-781
Perceptions of Similarly and Dissimilarly Attractive Couples and Individuals Leonard Saxe Boston University
Daniel Bar-Tal School of Education, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Two experiments were conducted to investigate the implications of the generalized physical attractiveness stereotype. In Experiment 1, male and female college students evaluated photographs of ostensibly married couples who were either similar or dissimilar in their level of physical attractiveness. In Experiment 2, the same stimulus persons were presented as unassociated individuals. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that physical attractiveness is differentially important for the perception of male and female spouses. Female spouses were evaluated independently of their husband's level of physical attractiveness on most scales, whereas the evaluation of male spouses (especially unattractive males paired with attractive females) was related to the female's level of attractiveness on a number of dependent variables. The results of Experiment 2 confirmed the existence of the positive stereotype of physically attractive individuals.
The importance of physical attractiveness Although similar findings have been subas a variable affecting social interaction has sequently reported (e.g., Berscheid, Dion, been demonstrated in a number of recent Walster, & Walster, 1971), this recent restudies (Berscheid & Walster, 1974). The re- search has shown that a person's own level sults of recent experimental work indicate of physical attractiveness has a moderating that almost uniformly, the physically attrac- effect on date selection. Thus, although phystive have advantages in social relations not ically attractive individuals are strongly preferred as dates (and are also liked more), accorded to the less attractive. For example, Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, unattractive individuals tend to choose simiand Rottman (1966) arranged a "computer larly unattractive others as their dates. dance" in order to develop predictors of In addition to its centrality in dating, other dating success. A large number of men and evidence indicates that attractiveness is also women were randomly matched as dates, and a cue for a broad cluster of positive sothe experimenters obtained data on a number cial characteristics (cf. Berscheid & Walster, of their subjects' personal characteristics, in- 1974). For example, Miller (1970) found that cluding an objective assessment of their phys- attractive individuals were judged to possess ical attractiveness. To their surprise, Walster a cluster of traits that can be considered more et al. found that only ratings of subjects' positive than those ascribed to unattractive attractiveness were useful as predictors of a individuals. Similarly, Dion, Berscheid, and date's liking for his or her partner. Walster (1972) found that there was a generalized attractiveness stereotype for both men and women. Physically attractive individuals A portion of the data reported in this article were were perceived to have more socially desirpresented at the meeting of the American Psycho- able personality characteristics (e.g., more logical Association, New Orleans, August 1974. The authors wish to thank Gary Koeske, Carol Wildeman, sensitivity, more sincerity, and more kindness) and Ellen Berscheid for their comments on an earlier as well as more successful social and profesdraft of this article; Richard Bilonick for statistical sional lives than the physically unattractive. help; and Ronald Bloom, Alice Ostroom, and Sarah One implication of this generalized physical Reseta for assistance in conducting the study. Requests for reprints should be sent to Leonard attractiveness stereotype is that association Saxe, Department of Psychology, Boston University, with a physically attractive other provides a Boston, Massachusetts 022IS. number of additional rewards beyond those 772
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normally a part of the relationship. Sigall and Landy (1973) found that males created a more favorable impression when romantically associated with a female made to appear attractive than when associated with the same female made to look unattractive. In addition, Sigall and Landy found that subjects believed that association with an attractive female would cause others to perceive them more favorably. The experimenters' explanation for these findings was that evaluations based on attractiveness "radiate" to others who are associated with that individual. It is important to note that Sigall and Landy's investigation was limited to studying the impressions formed of a male associated with an attractive or unattractive female. In order to extend the scope of Sigall and Landy's investigation and to relate physical attractiveness to an important "real-life" situation, Experiment 1 in the present report was designed to examine the effect of physical attractiveness on the perception of married couples, that is, to determine whether the perceptions of two individuals (male and female) who are closely associated with one another are affected by the attractiveness of the other person. It would be expected, directly extrapolating from Sigall and Landy's findings, that individuals are perceived more favorably when paired with an attractive spouse as compared to an unattractive spouse. However, this prediction ignores the possible effect of a stimulus person's own level of attractiveness and the effect of a couple being either similar or dissimilar to one another in attractiveness. Given the evidence that individuals tend to marry others at their own level of attractiveness (e.g., Murstein, 1972), a dissimilar couple may cause others to examine more closely the characteristics of both spouses in evaluating either of them. In addition, it is necessary to consider that the physical attractiveness stereotype may differ for men and women. Thus, a number of studies have found that although attractive females are always evaluated positively, the stereotype for males is not always positive and not always unitary (e.g., Byrne, London, & Reeves, 1968; Miller, 1970; Saxe, Bar-Tal, & Wiener, Note 1). In view of these considerations, it can be
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hypothesized that individuals paired with spouses who are dissimilar in their physical attractiveness will be more positively evaluated when their spouse is attractive and more negatively evaluated when their spouse is unattractive. When spouses are similar in their level of attractiveness, the effect of the other individual is expected to be minimal. It is further hypothesized that the "radiating beauty" effect found for dissimilar spouses will be most pronounced for the evaluation of males. Because of the strength of the physical attractiveness stereotype for women, females will be evaluated almost entirely on the basis of their own attractiveness. EXPERIMENT 1 Method Subjects Subjects were 64 male and 64 female students at the University of Pittsburgh who participated in the study as part of a requirement for an introductory psychology class.
Procedure Subjects were run in groups of two males and two females in a small classroom. Each subject was given a set of written instructions that were read to the group by a female experimenter. The instructions indicated that the experiment was concerned with the accuracy of person perception and that the investigators were interested in comparing subjects' judgments with those of clinical psychologists and psychology graduate students. Subjects then viewed two slides (shown simultaneously) of a male and female who were described as a married couple. While the slides remained on the screen, subjects were asked to indicate their judgment of each person by completing a questionnaire containing a series of evaluation scales. The order in which subjects completed the evaluation of the "husband" and "wife" was counterbalanced along with other characteristics of the stimuli (see below). After completing their evaluations of each spouse, subjects were thoroughly debriefed. First, in order to determine whether subjects were suspicious of the experimental procedure, they were asked to comment on the study and to suggest -hypotheses. These discussions indicated that there was very little suspicion of the experimental procedure and subjects were then told of the purposes of the experiment.
Stimulus Materials The slides used as stimuli had been selected from a large sample of recent college yearbook photographs. A group of eight judges, four males and four females (who were from the same population as the subjects), had evaluated each of these pictures by
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rating them on a scale of physical attractiveness. Two photographs representative of high and low physical attractiveness of each sex were chosen from the sample. The criterion for choosing the slides was that there be high interjudge reliability and that they not represent an extreme of either high or low attractiveness (see procedure used by Dion et al., 1972).i This selection process yielded eight slides that were assembled into four types of couples in all possible combinations—two in which attractiveness was similar (both partners were either attractive or unattractive) and two in which attractiveness was dissimilar (one partner attractive, the other unattractive). Thirty-two groups of four subjects were then randomly assigned to one of the 16 possible combinations; that is, each slide combination was presented to two groups.
Dependent Variables The dependent measures consisted of subjects' evaluations of the "husband" and "wife" on a series of scales adapted from Dion et al. (1972) on which item analyses had been conducted. On the first sat of scales, personal characteristics, subjects were asked to rate: (a) 17 personality traits which, following the procedure of Dion et al., served as an index of social desirability of personality and (b) 3 additional scales that assessed the stimulus person's intelligence, popularity, and physical attractiveness. On a second set of scales, sodoeconomic status, subjects were asked to predict the stimulus person's future: (a) level of education, (b) income, and (c) occupational status. On a third set of evaluative scales, futwe happiness, subjects were asked to predict the stimulus person's: (a) marital happiness, (b) parental happiness, (c) social success, and (d) professional success. In summary, three sets of scales including 11 separate dependent measures were used. Of these dependent measures, 10 were single scales and 1, social desirability of personality, was an index derived by summing across a series of subscales.
Design The design for analysis was a 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 analysis of variance. Between-subjects factors were husband's attractiveness (high, low), wife's attractiveness (high, low) and sex of subject. A within-subjects factor was sex of stimulus person (i.e., sex of spouse). This design was chosen in order to make possible direct comparison of the effects of each spouse's attractiveness.
Results As a first step in the data analysis, a multivariate analysis of variance was performed on each of the three sets of scales. On the first set of scales, personal characteristics, the multivariate analysis yielded main effects
for husband's attractiveness (p < .01), wife's attractiveness (p < .01), and sex of stimulus person (p < .01). There were also two interaction effects: Husband's Attractiveness X Sex of Stimulus Person (p < .05) and Wife's Attractiveness X Sex of Subject (p < .05). On the second set of scales, socioeconomic status, the analysis yielded main effects for sex of subject (p < .05) and sex of stimulus person (p < .01). In addition, there were two interaction effects: Husband's Attractiveness X Sex of Subject (p < .05) and Husband's Attractiveness X Wife's Attractiveness X Sex of Stimulus Person (p < .05). Finally, on the third set of scales, future happiness, the analysis yielded four main effects: husband's attractiveness (p < .01), wife's attractiveness, (p < .01), sex of subject (p < .01), and sex of stimulus person (p < .01). On the future happiness scales, there was also one interaction effect, Husband's Attractiveness X Sex of Stimulus Person (p < .01). Univariate Analyses In order to determine, more precisely, the effects of the independent variables, univariate analyses of variance were conducted on each of the 11 dependent measures. First, on the dependent measure assessing perceived physical attractiveness, the univariate analysis of variance indicated that the manipulation of attractiveness was successful for both husband's attractiveness (p < .01) and wife's attractiveness (p < .01). In essence, subjects confirmed the prior judges' evaluations of attractiveness. The mean ratings for this variable, by condition, as well as mean ratings for all other dependent measures are shown in Table 1. Because of the large number of statistical comparisons involved in the remaining univariate analyses (10 Dependent Measures X 15 Effects), the presentation of results is focused on patterns of significant interaction effects. For the most part, significant main effects are ignored because they are constrained by higher order interactions. The F 1 The average intraclass correlations for all the pictures was .85.
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TABLE 1 MEAN RATINGS OF STIMULUS PERSONS' CHARACTERISTICS, EXPERIMENT 1 Similar couples Dependent measure
Attractive husband
Attractive wife
Social desirability of personality Intelligence Popularity Physical attractiveness Level of education Income level Occupational status Marital happiness Parental happiness Social success Professional success
4.71 4.84 4.97 4.47 4.69 3.16 4.89 4.16 4.50 4.71 4.91
4.96 5.06 5.37 5.59 4.47 2.56 4.44 4.84 5.09 5.28 5.25
values for all comparisons and dependent measures are shown in Table 2. Husband's and wife's attractiveness. For the husband's attractiveness and wife's attractiveness factors, the univariate analysis of variance yielded important three-way interactions (Husband's Attractiveness X Wife's Attractiveness X Sex of Stimulus Person) on the dependent measures of income level (p < .05), occupational status (p
